Once more unto the breach

I’m back. I think. (Yes, again.)

The beginning of this year started with such promise. I read. I wrote. The grand expectations of chewing bubble gum and kicking ass, sans bubble gum.

Obviously, if you’ve kept up with any of my new year whiny-ness, you’re aware that it all came to a screeching halt at the end of January. Life happened in spades. Nothing earthshattering. Nothing beyond the busyness of living and the irritation of an immune system that doesn’t like to cooperate in a traditional manner.

Wah wah wah!

I *think* I’m getting a hold on my immune system, or at least it’s so worn out that it’s becoming complacent. I may be exhausted, but I can still get shit done once my immune system goes into hibernation between flares.

And as for all the rest, the visiting family and local family mini-emergencies, I’m happy to have had the time logged with loved ones and to have been there to support the young ones in my life who needed it. I’m happy to have made new memories and to have found past experiences beneficial in improving the current lives and futures of family who needed it. There is a sense of continuity in using family history to pave a better road to prevent old crap from claiming a new generation. Considering how strongly family has come up in my life this month involving old family wounds and new generations, there’s a separate post in there somewhere. Hell, there’s at least a book or two in that as well.

I’ve slid into home in the most birthday-dense month of the year for my family. I’ve baked cakes, cooked favorite meals, wrapped presents and even managed to get a few balloons to the chagrin of the birthday adults. Did I pull it off with panache? Nah. And that’s becoming more and more okay. Acceptance is a beautiful thing.

I’ve had a few epiphanies this year already. One was very welcome: the only validation I need is from myself (relatively speaking). There’s plenty more that goes with that (yet another, other, post), but for someone who seeks approval in so many avenues, it’s an important idea to come to. At least this month. Who the hell knows what I’ll think about it in a few more months. The other epiphany, if it can be called that, has helped me understand even more why it’s best to let go of certain situations. Vague? Well, that’s as much energy as I feel it warranted.

I have not completely fallen off the reading wagon, watery eyes aside. I’m going between a Stephen King tome and what seems to be a lighthearted fantasy novel about a bookstore. But it’s been a nonfiction book I devoured that’s captured my thoughts of late. The daughter of an abuse survivor goes on a quest to find out what happened in her family’s past. This was my first foray into so-how-screwed-up-is-my-family-history-really. Geographical and personal differences aside, there were some uncanny similarities in my family’s story and this one. I was damn near giddy, compartmentalizing my horror, to see what was common. I was frustrated that the writer’s mother had found a way to thrive (seemingly at least) while my mother hit a brick wall during her ascent to putting her life together and never recovered. To clarify, I don’t begrudge the woman or her daughter a damn thing. Instead it makes the despair a little more tender at how my mom’s (and dad’s) life has turned out. Also, it gave me a baseline for how to approach telling a story of that nature. Someday, I will write a book about this area of my family’s history, about the rippling waves that still impact the generations further removed from it. I struggle with how in the hell to tackle such a project, knowing that this is a story I’ve been wanting, needing, to tell as long as I’ve been aware. I appreciated the author’s approach (Some reviewers didn’t, but I got it.), but there are completely different journeys. At least now I have some sense of one way it’s been handled.

And in the end, that’s kind of the point of these place holder blog posts. A personal Pensieve to unload extraneous bits of this and that to give my fictional muses and non-fiction family story more room to develop. A venue to ramble, to mold thoughts, to ponder in as much detail as I feel necessary while I continue working on the bigger picture. If a portion all have the same general content, then that’s the junk that needs to be jetisoned to get the cogs working again. Repeating myself here is at the very least cathartic ranging up to potentially helping me recognize what I need to work on for myself in the future. Then again, at the very, very least, it’s having written something. It doesn’t need to be eligible for an award or even interesting to other people as long as it helps keep me writing.

So, writing has been a bust. Working on getting back into a groove there.

Reading, not doing too bad.

Coffee, too sad to contemplate, although it’s on an upswing over the past week.

Foreign language, enh.

Napping, still not enough. Then again, I wouldn’t be satisfied until it was a nap a day minimum, so it’ll never be enough.

Sick again... again

The moral of the story for 2016 continues to be: when I set perfectly reasonable personal goals for myself to kick off my year, I will end up being sick more times in the first month and a half of the year than I've been in ages.

It feels like the first month and change of this year have been a whirlwind of activity punctuated with feeling like dog poop that's turned white and covered with decaying leaves.

So I will not be gushing about what a fantastic job my husband did on Valentine's Day for me, especially considering we had not discussed anything at all beyond 'let's grab a pizza and watch a movie at home'.

I also will not be bubbling over about relatives coming to visit from near and far.

And there will be no child's level of delight over going to visit THE mouse's kingdom last week or the momentous expensive decision to get annual passes for the first time in my life.

I've written squat. This vexes me greatly.

I've read very little. Focusing on books when my eyes are watering and head feels like concrete isn't happening.

Coffee consumption is piss poor.

I did sprinkle one of my theme park visits with a bit of foreign language. I'll consider that a teensie, weensie win.

And whatever else I was keeping track of, well, tough cookies.

This is me putting a pin in things until I can make something semi-cohesive later. After my sinuses drain and my coffee intake is on the rise.

Warm Fuzzies

When I started this blog, I wrote about one of my niblings coming out. It wasn’t a shocker, but I wanted to be sure to convey to them my unconditional support because for whatever reason in this day and age people still apparently have to come out. And my perfectly adorable nibling can’t be free to be who he or she is within her own extended family because of ignorant and oppressive views. Well not in my house, buddy.

Before coming out, we were together when the Supreme Court ruled in favor of marriage equality. We cheered in delight as the nation took a big (and long overdue) step in the right direction on a government level. His or her sibling was with us, not understanding why we cared or that it even mattered. I tried to explain & received a shrug which was shorthand for “it doesn’t matter to me & I may or may not be hungry again” in kid-speak.

And if you haven’t read my little post about my nibling coming out to me, I will take this moment to clarify that I refer to no specific gender for the purpose of my nibling’s privacy. In my other posts, I stay pretty gender neutral when referring to any of my nieces and nephews (or sundry family members) as well, again for their protection and privacy. No shame, just protective.

Well, we reached another milestone around here. One of my siblings (& family) came for a visit. I invited my dating nibling to invite the signficant other to the family dinner. Before I could finish asking, fingers were flying on the phone. Signficant other asked parents, received approval and responded. I believe warp speed was achieved locally that night. Because I’ve never had to hide who I was with (at least not in this respect), I was a little taken aback to be asked if it was okay that this person be presented as the significant other AND did Uncle so-and-so know (of their same-sex-ness).

My response was that they would be in my home and in my home they could be exactly who they were. Always. I wasn’t sure if Uncle so-and-so knew, but I assured them that considering I know my sibling’s spouse has LGBTQ friends that there shouldn’t be a problem there. I added, because I realized that may not be reassuring enough when you’re young and not able to share who you are with everyone in your life, on the off chance that Uncle so-and-so not be okay, I would remove him from my house. My nibling’s mouth dropped. Yep, that’s right kid. I would throw my own sibling out of my house (& so much more) to protect your right to be who you are. Without hesitation. Who you love isn’t something to be ashamed of (In this instance. We all know plenty of straight and LGBTQ folks dating asshats regardless of sexual orientation. But I digress.).

So the day came and I picked everyone up. It was their first extended family get together as a couple. I made introductions and referred to this unknown teenager as our beloved nibling’s signficant other. Not friend. No veiled wordplay. Teenagers grinned then froze, their eyes zeroing in on facial expressions. A polite chorus of “nice to meet you” echoed. The grins turned into megawatt smiles. The earth did not shake. Fingers did not point. Bibles were not thrown at them.  Nibling significant other (from here forward, NSO) called me “Aunt” in front of everyone. I was taken aback, because when it was said, it was like someone new to the family testing out calling their new or potential in-laws Mom or Dad. There was weight and meaning packed into the title. I gave NSO a warm smile and handed over a drink. We piled into vehicles and went to dinner after an hour or two of banter and our resident love birds sitting together. Later, once the out of town relatives were on their way and the grandparents retired for the evening, the teenagers cuddled without a second thought in front of me. I took a ‘mom’ level amount of pictures. Before I dropped them off for the night, I double checked and confirmed which pictures could be uploaded to which social media sites. Zero indication of romantic status could go on ABC. Cute, romantic pics could go on XYZ. I added an extra level of privacy filter of my own and didn’t tag either of them in any pictures I did share.

I got a big hug from my teen nibling when I dropped them off. Later, I was tagged in his or her social media post (on XYZ, where they are openly a couple) thanking me for having them over together. Cool *cough* aunt was suddenly full of the warm fuzzies.