Where have I been for the past 2+ hours? I'll tell you! I've been at www.snopes.com - a truly magical place full of the most interesting urban legends! Read the truth about Disney World and salacious rumors involving candy bars and gerbils. I've got to go back there someday!
posted by SPowers at 1:48 PM | Remember It!

Wow. Where does the time go? I'm so tired... I went to bed at 9 p.m. last night and slept straight through until 5:45 am when my alarm went off. Except for the five minutes or so round about when Sweet Husband came to bed. I woke up for that, but that was just around 10:20 or so, so I'm not really counting that.

Damn - but I hope his car gets fixed this week!! Not that I don't LOVE being with him in the quiet morning drive watching the GORGEOUS sunrise each morning. I do! But I think I'd like to go back to our old routine now. I remember enjoying sleeping in.

I've jumped around to some of the blogs I've been reading and I have some thoughts on family.

Misty: Don't ever let it be said that you didn't meet your cousin halfway. Maybe she's feeling the same thing you are, hesitation & trepidation. Maybe she's just as busy or fearful or whatever as you. If she sees you willing to be open to whatever she has to say, then that'll help her be open to whatever YOU have to say back. I don't know what family problems you guys had/have so I won't speculate and I'll curtail my unasked-for advice except to say that that's always worked for me. If you're upset with someone, you're usually better off letting them bitch first.

Tina: Wow. I am sorry about your dad's wife. I could have so easily been in the same position and I am glad that I'm not. Does that sound horrible? Probably - but I'm being honestly empathetic. See, after my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, my dad began cheating on her (he told her he wanted a woman he could feel proud of to walk down the street with him). After a year or two, my mom figured it out (the hang-up phone calls helped) and after another year of them fighting & making up & fighting about it, he moved out (a week before my birthday and 8 days before I discovered I had an ovarian cyst). He came home after a month (his car broke down) and stayed, but traveled a lot. That summer, he moved out for real to another city 4 hours' drive away. We saw him rarely after that.

Now, in this other city he met a divorced mother of two and they started an affair. My mom had recovered, then - and we're talking about 10 years of lapsed time - discovered her cancer had metastasized to her bone. Long story short, she died. My dad & I drove to upstate New York to scatter her ashes over Lake Chatauqua (family tradition) and bonded. I invited him for Thanksgiving, but he said he was going to spend it with a woman he'd "just met." As soon as I heard her voice, I knew she was the woman he'd been dating since he moved away the 2nd time (my mom cracked the code on his answering machine). She was nice, though. I think that's the difference, Tina.

My dad's wife never tried to be anything but my dad's girlfriend, then fiance, then wife (they married six months after my mom died). My dad doesn't shy away from the topic of my mom, life with my mom, nothing. Since I always refused to pretend I sprang fully formed from my dad's forehead (10 points if you catch that reference!) I never let her intimidate me - not that she would or could.

See, it's the new wife's responsibility to meet the kids halfway and the kids responsibility to be there when she does. After my dad was married to her for almost 3 years, I gave his wife a mother's day card that said how happy I was that she had made my dad so happy and was taking such good care of him. I hug her when I see her, I don't shy away from long discussions with her, I invite her into my home, I get invited to family stuff, she gets along super-well with my brothers & their wives & my niece calls her 'granma' (which bugs me but it's not anybody's fault).

It could all have been SO different. If she had been the least bit smug, superior or snobby to me, if she had dared to be mean or nasty or rude in ANY way, I would have let her have it but good. There's no way in hell I would have been the least bit shy about telling her exactly where she stood - or letting her know that I know the only reason she is actually married to my dad is because my mom died, that there was NO way my dad was ever going to actually divorce my mom despite the fact that they had separated.

But she never did that so I never had to. I'm lucky - I know that. It could so easily have gone the other way. My unasked-for advice to you, Tina? Keep inviting her, keep being nice, keep taking the high road and it'll always be her problem, her fault & her responsibility if things don't improve. Do what you can and then you can feel sorry for her for not being secure enough to even come to your house for family gatherings. It's fun to pity people.

I think that's all I have time to say about that. It's not really helpful and it kind of reads like I'm bragging. Sorry.
posted by SPowers at 8:48 AM | Remember It!