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Nov. 20th, 2011 06:18 pmIt's strange, being back in this place that was never home. Things have changed and things haven't. I have changed, which becomes more and more noticeable all the time.
I am reacting to things differently, which I guess is progress. My brother would still rather play video games than interact with family -- but it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it did a year ago. My stepmother still says and does insensitive and unforgivable things -- and somewhere in the last year I came to some sort of peace with that, without realizing it.
There was a point when, for my own mental health, I told my dad I would never set foot in his house again. That was necessary at the time and it no longer is. I didn't know that until I got here.
We went to Quaker Meeting today. It was good to see people who knew me as a teenager; it feels like there is stability and continuation in the world. Marion immediately tried to set me up with a young father in the Meeting, which amused me. Ken has gone mostly deaf, but we carried on quite a conversation in spite of it; it kept twisting and turning with what he thought he'd heard me say. Ruth is 95 and still has a core of iron.
I sat in my dad's office yesterday going through some of the books he used to read to use when we were little. Some were friends I had forgotten; some I'd almost completely lost the memory of. The books he got after my mother died still make me cry.
Wide open spaces here in Texas Hill Country. It's warm -- too warm for the clothes I brought. I take Shadow on long walks to escape the press of unarticulated needs and pressures. All the neighbors seem to have either horses or dogs.
My dad talked about teaching three terms in 2013. I turned to my brother and said, "About the middle of 2013, Dad's going to implode. Be prepared." And my dad can hear that now, which is new.
I'm sitting on their porch, in the evening breeze, listening to the wind chimes. How can they not know how beautiful this place is? They put sweat and tears and a ton of marriage counseling into building it, and now they can't see it. They're going to move away from this dream house that they built, the house they were planning to die in.
A year ago, that would have made me furious. This house was part of the compromise in their marriage that screwed over my brother and left him out in the cold, quite literally without a home. It still aches a little, but something's changed in me, at least a little. I wish I knew what it was or what I did, so I could carry that knowledge forward, but I'm glad I found out. Even if nothing else comes of this trip, I'm glad I came.
I am reacting to things differently, which I guess is progress. My brother would still rather play video games than interact with family -- but it doesn't bother me nearly as much as it did a year ago. My stepmother still says and does insensitive and unforgivable things -- and somewhere in the last year I came to some sort of peace with that, without realizing it.
There was a point when, for my own mental health, I told my dad I would never set foot in his house again. That was necessary at the time and it no longer is. I didn't know that until I got here.
We went to Quaker Meeting today. It was good to see people who knew me as a teenager; it feels like there is stability and continuation in the world. Marion immediately tried to set me up with a young father in the Meeting, which amused me. Ken has gone mostly deaf, but we carried on quite a conversation in spite of it; it kept twisting and turning with what he thought he'd heard me say. Ruth is 95 and still has a core of iron.
I sat in my dad's office yesterday going through some of the books he used to read to use when we were little. Some were friends I had forgotten; some I'd almost completely lost the memory of. The books he got after my mother died still make me cry.
Wide open spaces here in Texas Hill Country. It's warm -- too warm for the clothes I brought. I take Shadow on long walks to escape the press of unarticulated needs and pressures. All the neighbors seem to have either horses or dogs.
My dad talked about teaching three terms in 2013. I turned to my brother and said, "About the middle of 2013, Dad's going to implode. Be prepared." And my dad can hear that now, which is new.
I'm sitting on their porch, in the evening breeze, listening to the wind chimes. How can they not know how beautiful this place is? They put sweat and tears and a ton of marriage counseling into building it, and now they can't see it. They're going to move away from this dream house that they built, the house they were planning to die in.
A year ago, that would have made me furious. This house was part of the compromise in their marriage that screwed over my brother and left him out in the cold, quite literally without a home. It still aches a little, but something's changed in me, at least a little. I wish I knew what it was or what I did, so I could carry that knowledge forward, but I'm glad I found out. Even if nothing else comes of this trip, I'm glad I came.