This Year of 2010 Ending Well

2010 brought us difficulties in the job world this year.  The merger and acquisition challenges combined with the new company entering into an unfamiliar business during a recession kind of challenges.  One might think that a sharp decline in income from corporate America would make this a bad year.

I'll tell you why (assuming this lasts until midnight) 2010 is a banner year.  So far (knock on wood, and hoping not to jinx myself) we have had no deaths of participating and loved family members, friends, or our personal canines this year.   A client did loose his dog, Petey, who I have known since puppy hood this year.   That was very sad, but (again knock on wood) our current dogs remain alive and healthy.   To me that is a good year.   We have gone seven years in a row of loosing human and canine family member friends.   At least five of whom were in five different years but in the same month of December.

You can imagine why I get a little blue in December and expect that some horrible thing is going to happen.   As a matter of fact, I should have accompanied my husband to the grocery store just to keep a watch out.   Traditionally, we stay in on New Year's Eve because there are a record number of drunk or tired drivers out that night.  

I did hear that the Monster got sick on Christmas Eve, and had to cancel the celebrations at her house.   My cousin picked it up instead (we did not get the notification personally).   I would like to share these comforting words that my father had to say about my mother in law dying and other difficulties he was unable to be a human being for:

"Join most of the human race. Life is tough some times, people loose loved ones, they get cancer, they get hurt, bad things happen all of the time."

Only I am not that cold hearted or selfish because an event is inferring with my self interest.  I wish I were.   I was tempted to inquire that nothing was seriously wrong with the monster.  It does figure into the realm of reason, knowing how she truly felt about preparing the Christmas Eve fest, that she simply did not want to do it and lied.   Course she is also morbidly obese with diabetes (supposedly or that was the excuse I was given for behavior), so she could be seriously ill.  I do figure that she is such a martyr, she would have to be very ill in order not to "suffer through it".

However, the thought above is more thought than the monster deserves, and does not change what kind of a human being she has been or how Spermy has aided and abetted her in her mission(s).  Or the fact that they take such horrible care of themselves.  I'm just thankful that I am not as miserable as they are OR trapped in that particular marriage.

Karma, she is a bitch.  That's two for two for Karma this year, as Eggy got someone stealing from her in cyber space as well and harassing her.  Karma did just fine by me in 2010.   My more materialistic donors would think I had a horrible year though:)  Hence, most likely, why they seem so miserable.

Snow, snow, snow and then some more snow

We will be enjoying our first real snow storm today.  I have six dogs to get out in the snow (that means we have four guest boarders).  Our daycare may come along if his owner feels like braving the blizzard today.

I tried to complete a blog posting titled "Apologies, Acknowledgements, and Boundaries, Oh My!", but my mind is distracted by going out and having some fun!

That is a good thing:)

Be Aware What You Tape Over

This is sort of a funny story.   Neither I nor my husband remember when or if this is what happened.   I have no recollection of Eggy sending me a tape in the beginning of our estrangement of her ranting.   I suspect this may be, because if I had received such a thing, I would not have listened to it.  I further speculate that I probably would have thrown it in a draw with other tapes, with instructions to do with it as anyone would want.

My husband and his friends make tapes and discs for each other.   A few years ago, Robert put together a tape for our friend, Rich, of stuff that he liked and wanted to share.   Apparently, it was on a tape with Eggy ranting (at the end of it) for another 15 minutes LOL.  

Our friend heard this, and was totally horrified by the behavior of this person on tape.   He called Robert up to find out who it might be that he was listening to.  My husband had forgotten to tell me this, and on a day where I was feeling blue about my family, told me so I would know that others who have experienced Eggy think she's as horrible as I do.   Apparently she was listing off things as to why she did not need to respect me.   Our friends comment was "and this is a parent?".

I enjoyed the humorous story, and very glad that I never listened to the tape myself!

My Goals for Estrangement Remain the Same

I did a pretty decent job this year keeping EFOO out of my head.   Not perfect mind you, but the number of blog posts for the past three years tell a story.  This year there were three main events that distracted me a bit:

1. My birthday where I found myself on the beach set up near Spermy and Monster.
2. November posting from Eggy where she tried to get my attention, and when she couldn't listed me as a suspect for cyber stealing from her (she took that post down quickly, after e-mail contact from me).
3. December or November when I got a third party inquiry as to when *I* was going to stop the estrangement.   This was sent through a relative that I like a lot and has tried to have a relationship with me from one that has had zero relationship or discussion with me about it.  Hey since they talk to HIM, why not ask him why he doesn't wish to have a relationship with HIS daughter and never has?  Why when he has admitted doing things wrong *I* am supposed to make it alright and comfortable for him?

Anywhoo, those are the things that have distracted me this year.  I think I would have gotten away with having only eight posts this year without them .

So at this point every year, I try and make goals for myself that I intend to keep.   This would be related to other personal goals, but here are my goals in estrangement.

1. To continue to trust and believe that I did the right things for the right reasons OR (to put it another way) to stop having the need to review the evidence and torture myself with it.   I know what I know, and it is what it is.  I can't change them, it, me, the circumstances that brought me here.
2. Not visit my female donor's blog and hence eliminate the very likely possibility that she will try and lure me in by pissing me off (very much related to number one).  Also ignore any other her postings of what she assumes my life is or was that are elsewhere
3. Work on my communication with those people that do love and care for me to the best of my ability.  Try to be more open and reach out more than I do.  I really try to cut out any third party contact and go to the source.   I also try to let people know that I care about them, but I have a hard time putting myself out there or allowing people to get too close.
4. Enjoy everyday that I can.
5. Be more disciplined and consistent with things that I need to do (IE stop procrastinating and getting down when I do) so that I can stop stressing myself out (oh female donor would latch onto this in the old days). 
6. Be thankful for what I have.
7. Let my creativity be something that I do on occasion.
8. Related to seven patience with learning new crafts, and patience with myself while I learn new things.
9. Find fun and active things to do as a family.

So there are my goals most related to healing from family estrangement or promoting the healing of estrangement from family.

December is Not Christmas Time Anymore

Here we are in December, a month that I very much enjoyed as a child.   Being an only child, I did actually get a lot of gifts on Christmas and during the family part on Christmas Eve.  I loved the decorations, making up the tree, and most of all Gram's house.   I don't think it's faulty or sentimental on my part to think those Christmas's and other holidays at Gram's house were filled with a little magic.   Okay, maybe that is a little exaggeration there LOL.   Those were the holidays that I loved, and they were gone many years before Gram finally succumbed to old age and all of it's problems.

I did go on celebrating Christmas with my little family.   On the first of one of my dog's deaths, Neptune, on December 21st that magic started dwindling away.   Since then this month (not year) has seen the loss of my Mother In Law, Mustache our cat, Jazz our first dog, and finally Jackie last year.   These are by far the worst of estrangements.   My grandfather passed away a couple of days after being too sick to spend Thanksgiving with us.  I missed my last Christmas with my Granmother, because monster did not want her to come and then complain about going back to the assisted care facility.   I should have just gone and spent Christmas with grandmother!!  In my current frame of mind, the thought that I just could have done that did not even occur to me.

So while in general I enjoy holidays more because I don't have the past obligations to the estranged, I do not think the month of December will ever hold the joy for me that it once did.   I am okay with that, it's nice to remember my fallen friends and family who have been estranged through the event of death.   That is more important than a holiday made to commercialize everything:)

However, though these are joyful memories, they do make me a little blue, as my time with those friends and family members have passed.   December is filled with so many days of passed family and friends.   So it is important to get out and enjoy life in honor of those that have passed.  

A lot of my pick me up comes from my husband and my dogs.   We have been watching the first season of Columbo on Netflix, and also whipping each other's ass in Playstation 3 fighting game.   I have continued to cook with my husband.   We have been having a lot of fun doing this.   I used to hate cooking as I had no instruction pre my marriage in the correct way of doing things, and so my meals turned out like crap.   I need A LOT of instruction just to get through the little things that go wrong, or what the consistency should look like, or what's the difference between this mixing and that mixing.   With instruction, go figure, we have had some excellent meals that we made together.

Yesterday, I started clearing out some skating paths in our wetlands out back, which have frozen over.  Good work out, and kept the dogs out there for about four hours while I worked on it.   I think we all got good and frozen, and then took a nice long cuddly nap together.   No doubt some good exercise came from it too, as I am clearing the brush ET and that blocks the paths in the wetlands.  It snowed yesterday, so now I have that to look forward to clearing.   I don't know if the rink will be done today, but it should be done by Christmas if I work diligently on it.

My In Law family is Jewish.   Traditionally, they have not done the big family thing around Hanukkah.   Although my family alternates it between my cousin's house and the sperm donor's house, I have wished more to see other family during times when I won't be around the sperm donor and the monster.   Also it seems that side of the family thinks if we see each other, we will run straight into each other's arms.  Now spermy might put on a good show for the family, but I have seen him outside the family and did not feel an out pouring of love and good wishes from him.  I also saw him a long time ago at a family event, where the monster spent her time coming up to any family member that I was trying to talk to and getting in between us to try to prevent it (she is an utter peach that way).   I just don't need that kind of drama and selfishness around me.   Not even because it's the holiday, it's because life is too short for me to have to deal with that.  

If family does not make other times available to see me when we are not even a mile away from each other, then clearly they have no interest in me.   As such, they are hardly family in any sense of the word besides biology.  That does not mean I hold hard feelings towards them, I don't.   But why would I be putting myself out there in an uncomfortable situation with people that I barely saw once a year previously?  To me, that is not family.

There is one to three relatives that tried to have any sort of forward/future relationship with me in any active way:)

This Point in My Estrangement

I love these days where the donors are not in my head.   When I wonder if I should write something in my blog, but have nothing more to say about it really.  

I never before this year had found the wealth of other blogs out there about people dealing with narcissistic or sociopath parents before (or psychopathic for that matter).   I wish I had these resources when I was first struggling to come to terms with what exactly was wrong.   I do hate labelling people,but the definitions in these cases point to something that many other people experience.  It is comforting to know you are not alone, and to read with how others dealt with it (whether estranged or still struggling through the relationship).

It helps explain a lot to you how the very people that made you don't love you, or look at you just as a resource or possession.   Realizing it is not you, that you are not inherently unlovable, unworthy of respect, or unworthy of kindness and empathy, it gives you the solice and courage to move on from that point and to grow.

I am happy to see so many more voices out there sharing their experiences.   I am still learning things about estrangement and dealing with it through these blogs.   If you are in this situation, please visit the blogs to the left, and know you are far from alone.

I have provided summary pages on my experience.   Unless direct or indirect contact happens, I probably will continue with rare informational writings.   I am pretty happy where I have found myself and where my life is at.