Forks In the Road
My wife and I had traveled far to be with our family. We hadn’t seen them in over a year. There was just not enough time to see all the people we wanted to see. I mean, really see them: go to their homes, raid their refrigerators, play with the kids and basically just “hang-out”. Since that would have required just a few more days that we didn’t have, the next best thing was to have one big gathering at my sister house. That way, everyone could gather at one place and could verify for their own peace of mind that I really hadn’t lost too much more hair, my sense of humor nor gained weight since last time we met.
There were a couple of unpredictable factors that I wasn’t looking forward to. One, my brother was not responding to anyone’s phone calls. He doesn’t have voice-mail. He does have e-mail (no response there either) and caller i.d.. Caller i.d. is nice! It let’s you decide if and who you want to talk to without those annoying voice-mails. Wait a second! Could it be that…hmmm…I won’t “go there”, dear reader. In my heart, though, I already had. He lives about an hour away from my sister’s house. And I am sure the reason he didn’t call back was because he was too busy watching Nascar. Certainly he would be there, right?
The other factor was my mother. My mother is an alcoholic. Would she show up sober or even reasonably sober (no such thing, I know)? Maybe I could chat with her, play her a song on my guitar, take a walk through the neighborhood on this reasonably warm afternoon. Something..anything to let me know I had a mother left that hadn’t been taken by booze.
Close to party time and no brother and no mother. Over an hour and nothing. Although I did feel a deep hurt inside, everyone else was there and I couldn’t get enough of being with everyone. I got to meet new “signifigant other’s” and introduce my wife to some new people. I was having such a good time. We were all having a great time and I was about really about ready to cry the whole time because I was happy to be with everyone.
And then my mother showed up. She wasn’t three-sheets-to-the-wind. She was the whole linen closet in a hurricane. To sum it up adequately, my quote of the evening was from one of my sister’s when we were trying to present birthday presents to my mother for her birthday a few days away: “Let’s hurry this up. “Survivor” is on in 10 minutes.!” That’s how people deal with pain: minimize the exposure if you can’t avoid it all together.
I was blind. My wife, and almost everyone else were expecting to be let down. But my hopes were too high to protect myself.
As some last ditch effort, I offered to play a song for my mother. She walked off without looking at me saying, “Well, if you want to.” She didn’t look back.
Good idea for me, too.
There were a couple of unpredictable factors that I wasn’t looking forward to. One, my brother was not responding to anyone’s phone calls. He doesn’t have voice-mail. He does have e-mail (no response there either) and caller i.d.. Caller i.d. is nice! It let’s you decide if and who you want to talk to without those annoying voice-mails. Wait a second! Could it be that…hmmm…I won’t “go there”, dear reader. In my heart, though, I already had. He lives about an hour away from my sister’s house. And I am sure the reason he didn’t call back was because he was too busy watching Nascar. Certainly he would be there, right?
The other factor was my mother. My mother is an alcoholic. Would she show up sober or even reasonably sober (no such thing, I know)? Maybe I could chat with her, play her a song on my guitar, take a walk through the neighborhood on this reasonably warm afternoon. Something..anything to let me know I had a mother left that hadn’t been taken by booze.
Close to party time and no brother and no mother. Over an hour and nothing. Although I did feel a deep hurt inside, everyone else was there and I couldn’t get enough of being with everyone. I got to meet new “signifigant other’s” and introduce my wife to some new people. I was having such a good time. We were all having a great time and I was about really about ready to cry the whole time because I was happy to be with everyone.
And then my mother showed up. She wasn’t three-sheets-to-the-wind. She was the whole linen closet in a hurricane. To sum it up adequately, my quote of the evening was from one of my sister’s when we were trying to present birthday presents to my mother for her birthday a few days away: “Let’s hurry this up. “Survivor” is on in 10 minutes.!” That’s how people deal with pain: minimize the exposure if you can’t avoid it all together.
I was blind. My wife, and almost everyone else were expecting to be let down. But my hopes were too high to protect myself.
As some last ditch effort, I offered to play a song for my mother. She walked off without looking at me saying, “Well, if you want to.” She didn’t look back.
Good idea for me, too.
posted by Cool Water William @ 10:07 AM
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