Same ol’, same ol’
As you’ve probably guessed, my sister is back with her husband and everything is hunky-dory. She never even filed the restraining order paperwork, though she did get out a gun from my dad’s house (and then put it back again). She’d ready to kill him one minute, and be his wifey the next. So it goes, so it goes. It’s so damned frustrating.
I really hate to visit home because I’m always scared her husband is going to crack and kill the whole family while we’re there. My mom laughs it off and says he’s not like that, but honestly? How do I know he’s “not like that”? I don’t feel safe there and no one understand why.
In the mean time my mom is always telling me that I need to move back to my hometown to get away from the dangers of Muslim extremists who are just waiting to bomb me.
Do I doubt that there are Muslim extremists or other baddies out here in the DC area? No. Absolutely not. I simply can’t dwell on it. Where else are we supposed to live? Even is Mike could magically get a job in my hometown, I wouldn’t move there. I would be hard pressed to intentionally move my children to a depressed cesspool of drug and alcohol abuse.
I think my mom thinks all that is normal behavior because she watches all those stupid judge shows and trashy talk shows. The people are almost always nasty, low-income liars who constantly yell at each other and everyone else. I can’t stand listening to all that yelling. I don’t see why people subject themselves to it in real life, much less invite it into their homes as television entertainment. It really skews her view of how life is lived. She doesn’t understand our life at all.
I don’t think she tries to stir up trouble, but she keeps saying “oh no, Mike is so mad at you” when he is nothing of the sort. She can’t seem to understand that when he and I have a discussion that’s just what it is–a discussion. We don’t always have to agree or say the same things. We hash things out without yelling. We think about what the other person says. We talk about the pros and cons of a situation. Mike thinks some more and we finally act on what needs to be done (or we don’t act).
I’ve decided I want to move the TV to the basement because we’ll have a lot more room down there and our family won’t be fragmented (our only working computer is down here). Mike is not keen on the idea of moving everything just because it’s a lot of work, but he understands that the walls are closing in on me upstairs and I desperately need a change. We can’t just pick up the TV and carry it down here, though. We need a plan. Where is the cable? Where will we put things? How will this work? My mom thinks we are having some horrible fight over it because we haven’t done it yet. She has no idea that normal people talk things over and don’t act out of spite.
I am going to miss her so much when she leaves, but it has definitely put into focus my very real need to stay far, far away from family drama. She must thrive on it. She’s always on the phone, getting the latest scoop. I prefer to avoid all knowledge of what’s going on back there.
In completely unrelated news, several of you asked about the Santa hands in the Elsa portrait. Those were provided by the studio and worn by me. My vision came about because I saw sample pictures in the JCPenny’s portfolio, so I knew they had what I wanted if they were just willing to pull them out for me. I am DYING for a picture of a newborn cradled in Santa hands. I am not dying for an actual Christmas newborn, though. Or an actual newborn of any season. There’s no way a baby could ever be as sweet and easy-going as Elsa and it’s hard enough to deal with her and Erik.