On the paternal side...

I watched Encanto relatively late, so I saw a lot of comments without context. Regardless, I remember a lot of people tweeting about the relationships, especially with the grandmother.

They hated her.

One of the most interesting things (and this came up somewhat with Turning Red and Everything Everywhere All At Once too) was this understanding that we have moved from stories where there are dead parents not getting in your way to living parents that you have to deal with, trauma included.

Without really getting into the history of animated storytelling and fairy tale traditions, the other thing I remember pretty clearly was a divide, with Latinx people being more willing to retain a relationship with Grandma, understanding why she was the way she was, and recognizing the behavior patterns of other family members as well.

It seemed white people were more likely to cast off hurtful relatives forever. That was not an official study, just what seemed to be observable. Perhaps a certain amount of privilege makes people a little more callous, or maybe we focus more on boundaries now.

Personally, I can relate to being unable to deal with any imperfections backed by a fear so terrible that it can't even be openly acknowledged openly that any crack of imperfection will result in the collapse of everything else, and that gives me some sympathy for Abuela..

But I also don't talk to my father. For what it's worth, we're white.

I have written about that relationship a lot, and I don't intend to rehash everything here. The key points are that there was a lot of damage, I have been healing, and I am going over these things now as part of this last round of healing.

The last breakthrough was associating my feelings of inferiority with my father's unhappiness and with my need to overcompensate and fix everything for everyone. It is possible that came through because of something that happened in February.

Of my father's five children, he has one that is in contact with him, so we sometimes hear things. It had become clear that we could start talking to him again like nothing ever happened. We weren't interested, but without us being forgiven, we could have our deficiencies ignored.

Then, when he was digitizing old slides, he sent all of us e-mail with the slides attached. Through the grapevine we knew he asked if we had said anything.

I felt I needed to respond. I wrote a long message pouring everything out, and deleted it.

Then I wrote a shorter message:

Hello,

I know it's been a while since you sent these. I was worried that it was rude not to respond, but what I could say seemed like it would be worse than not responding. I think it is important to say this, and I hope you will read it.

The last time you disowned me (and everyone else), I decided I was not going to contact you until the divorce was done and the house secured. After that, I would reach out to you. I was thinking even then that I would say that it has to be different; that it can't always be me walking on eggshells trying not to set you off. By the time it was over, I was tired, and I didn't have it in me to reach out to you. Maybe it was because I could not believe that it would change, where you would try harder. It was always your way or the highway.

After the big one, where you didn't speak to me for two and a half years, I was so happy when you told me you wanted to start over, and so full of love for you, I did not even think about how you didn't say that you were sorry. I did know that if we ever fought again, there would be no coming back from it. That is why I was always remembering to send you messages about things you would find interesting, or finding things to say in conversation that backed up what you were saying, even though you would still contradict me. That was exhausting. Every time I would see e-mail from you I would get this knot in my stomach, wondering what it was now, even knowing that I had just written recently and it was probably just a reply. That's what having a relationship with you is like.

I want to be clear that I do love you. I don't even really feel angry at you, but if I look at the strength that I have and the strength that you take, I can't do it.

If I had made different choices and my life was easier, maybe I could. That's on me.

If I thought that there could be any joy in it for me, or that even if it were very hard that it could do you good, I could find a way to keep you in my life. That part is on you. That is from you never putting your love for us above your pride.

And that you would just send us an e-mail stuffed with photos, with no message, with no apologies or expressions of concern or anything, and then expect us to respond to that, shows me that nothing has changed.

For the way you have been, you are lucky that Misty is willing to stay in touch with you. I hope you appreciate her, and try and be good to her.

Gina

This is what I got back:

Hello Gina,

Sending those pictures was an afterthought. My thought was to send them to Misty and she could forward them but it occurred to me I could send them direct. One point, I never disowned any of you. It was the other way around. I sent a letter to each of you with the question of wanting to be in my life or not and all, with the exception of Lance said yes we want to be in your life. However that never happened. I am your father and you will never be out of my life. I do think about you all and what we are missing.

Dad

There was nothing to write back.

Related posts:

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/03/disowning-scoreboard.html

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/02/always-somehow-wrong.html

What Mr. Rogers said

Before I get to my father, I need to talk about someone very different from him: Fred Rogers.

Back in 2018 when Won't You Be My Neighbor, the Mr. Rogers documentary came out, my sisters and I went to see it in the theater.

There was a question that really unsettled me because I couldn't answer it. Then, after the movie, my sisters asked me about it because they couldn't either. 

I would sometimes think about it and try and find the exact quote, but I never could. As I started writing these last few posts, I could not stop thinking about it. I streamed the video and played and paused that part until I had the whole thing down.

It came just before the ending, and I think it was edited for clarity, so there are some ellipses. This is how we heard what affected us so strongly.

“From the time you were very little, you've had people who have smiled you into smiling, who have talked you into talking, sung you into singing, loved you into loving...

Now think about somebody who's helped you along the way. For one minute, I'm going to time you... Let's just take some time to think of those extra special people... Some of them may be right here. Some may be far away. Some may even be in Heaven. No matter where they are, deep down you know they've always wanted what was best for you. They've always cared about you beyond measure and have encouraged you to be true to the best within you.”

They showed different people who had been interviewed throughout the film, thinking, and then sometimes saying whom they had thought of. Most of them were teary, but smiling too. The last three they showed were his two sons and then his wife, and she just said "Thank you" and then it went into the credits. (Though there was a great addition during the credits.)

My memory had been about there not being someone that I could just count on and trust completely, which is not exactly what is says, but is implied. It felt wrong to not be able to think of someone, kind of awful if there wasn't, but also kind of awful if there had been and I'd never noticed.

Looking at the words now, as they were said, sure, there have been people who have helped me along the way, but there is so much more love implied in the rest of it. What it seems to be getting at is someone who cherishes you, and I don't think I have had that.

Again, I do not doubt that either of my parents loved me, but being able to feel it matters too. That's what was lacking.

That my sisters couldn't answer either at least makes it not just me.

I will be spending more time on parental trauma, but there is something else about Mr. Rogers: I didn't like his show that much.

The movie talks about his quietness, and how it shouldn't have worked. I liked the faster, louder, funnier shows better. My favorite was The Electric Company; I really only watched Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood for the puppets.

I see more clearly now that you need quiet times for learning and growth, but it can also be really uncomfortable. That pain that needs to come forward, well, it's coming forward: Shove it away! Away!

More than a decade ago I was blogging about my life and how after my father disowned me the first time (that will come up next week) I threw myself into a ton of activities and work, unable to be still. 

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2010/08/club-sandwich.html

In retrospect, that may have started earlier. In fact, I did sit quietly all the time reading, but reading can be a great way of avoiding your own life. It doesn't have to function that way, but it can.

There was a gift that Mr. Rogers was offering that I was not ready to accept.

I think I have made some progress now, but it was a long time to wait.

Considering missing relationships, part 1

Two week ago in writing about grief, I wrote about how it can be reasonable to look at what spaces a relationship filled in your life (after a death), and if there were things that you should do to fill or rearrange those spaces.

https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2022/09/making-room-for-grief-and-healing.html

Those thoughts rose very logically from reading about other people and thinking about that, but then there was this ping, Oh, is that you?

The day after I posted the blog, I saw this Tweet:

https://twitter.com/mochamomma/status/1575612609096650752 

Today at grief group: when you consent to love another human being you're also consenting to grieve them.

Now I can think of nothing else.

It was very clear that I needed to go over both of my parental relationships. 

I didn't procrastinate, but I was not looking forward to it either.

One reason was that I was afraid I would turn out to be a total ingrate, not appreciating anything about my parents or acknowledging any need of them. I already have a fair amount of guilt knowing so many people whose parents are no longer living, and both of mine are and yet... we'll spend more time on that.

My other concern would be that it would turn out that I am heartless and cold because I don't tend to really miss people. 

Perhaps it is significant here that I had wondered if I should go over other people who had died or who were gone from my life for some other reason. Maybe someday that will be important, but it's not an issue for now.

I love people and enjoy spending time with them, but then when they are not around I function fine in their absence. Fortunately, my best friends are good about remembering me, and if someone actively needs me I am likely to have a dream or something telling me, but I don't think about it.

Having gone over it now, I believe that is more a matter of habit than heartlessness. There were times when I was friendless enough or on my own enough in my formative years that I just got very self-contained. Is it a completely positive trait? Doubtful, but it seems to mostly work out. Living alone might not be a great idea for me, though, especially with working from home.

I don't doubt that either of my parents loved me, though then those relationships diverge a lot, and there is too much there to treat them together.

Here is the background for anyone that doesn't know: my mother has advanced dementia. From 2016 to 2020 I was her full-time caregiver, and the "caregiver burnout" diagnosis remains on my medical record. 

Once she lost her memories of us, she needed more stimulation than I could provide, so we moved her into a facility with a lot of activities, and that has worked very well. I know we made the right choices at the right times, but there has been a lot of hurt over a long period of time. 

I see her every week or two (I do some medical testing that her anticoagulant requires), but she does not know me. The biggest parts of her care are handled by other people.

So even though she is living, and in my life, it is not the same; what potential holes does that leave?

I have been fiercely protective of her since the age of 9. Do I need someone to feel protective about? Probably not.

We had good times and generally got along well as adults. That was not just the two of us, usually, but also my younger sisters, whom I live with. When the three of us continue to have good times and get along pretty well, that absence is not as bad as it could be. Plus, I am the one who doesn't miss people so much.

When I was younger, I felt like she was always nagging about my weight and cleaning my room. I think now that I heard it more than she said it, but what was missing was knowing that I wasn't just fat and untidy. It was a weird thing finding out later that she always bragged about us to other people. That was not weird for her; you correct the flaws in your children, because they need to know. It was assumed that I would know the good things about myself. 

I did, actually. What I didn't know was that the good things could be enough for me to be loved and enjoyed and worth being around. I mostly know that now, but not knowing then was a real problem, and it's one I feel disloyal admitting now. Parental relationships can be complicated, and that will be even more true when we get to my father.

The hassles about my weight were very much built into the culture of the time, which hasn't improved that much, even if my understanding of it has. She constantly worried about her own weight as well.

For my room, I believe part of the problem was that cleaning was so much what Mom did, and what she was amazing at. Yes, you could say "acts of service" was her love language, but also cleaning was her avocation.

I miss how clean she kept the house. I can't keep up with it the way she could. 

Technically, I am probably a better cook than she was, but I liked the things she made. There were some of them that I never learned to make, and I can't ask now. 

Her taking care us of in those ways was her primary way of demonstrating her love, and I miss that. Whether that is more for the tangible results or because it meant there was someone there caring, well, it's probably a mix.

I have goals about getting the housecleaning on more of a schedule, and theoretically you can hire people for that (we can't afford it, but it's a thing people can do), but it will not be a manifestation of love and caring that way again. (Unless my sisters just take it over, but they have the same loss; all we can do is cooperate on that one.)

There is sadness here, and it is harder for this limbo state, where she is here but not really. It is appropriate to be sad about that.

It is also reasonable that limited healing is available while things are this way. I know there is a change that will come at some point, but those are all unknowns. Currently, it is sadness, but manageable.

I also believe that there is a future where all of those temporal problems are past. As she learns everything that she missed, that is going to hurt her, but we understand, and she will understand the things that we didn't handle better, because we love each other, and that will survive.

But for now what I need most for that loss is a cleaner house. 

That may make me unsentimental and hard-hearted, but it may also mean that sometimes when I despair about needing to clean the bathroom or figure out what to make for dinner again, maybe it isn't really that so much as that I miss Mom. 

If that's a factor, it's better to know. I can be more realistic about what is needed.

All better?

I had a breakthrough a few months ago. 

I am only writing about it now because at the time it was almost too easy to write about. Kind of anticlimactic, and not as resolved as one might hope. I did know I would get to it eventually.

I have written before about this unbearable grief that comes upon me during movies, where I am crying verging on hysteria. I have known there was sadness, and that it was connected to home and family, especially parents. I have worried that at some point it would all break out, and I would be left crying helplessly for days, which made me hesitant to pursue it that hard.

(I most recently wrote about this last year: https://sporkful.blogspot.com/2021/02/wild-abandon.html)

Then, the night of June 3rd, I did. 

Over the few months preceding I had watched Encanto, Seeing Red, and Everything Everywhere All At Once. The parental themes of those movies probably played a role, but also with the last one... it really shows how life beats you down. I related to that.

It had been on my mind, and after I went to bed I decided to just let it come.

My father was never happy with me. I could not fix that.

That was it.

To be fair, it was knowledge that I already had. I'd figured out a while ago that my sense of there always being something wrong with me came from my father's dissatisfaction with me, and figured out that the real problem was that he was dissatisfied with himself.

I had also been aware of my overinflated sense of responsibility and desire to fix the world, and known that it was not really possible.

Apparently I had not quite connected before that the first thing was the reason for the second thing, even though it is entirely logical. I was trying to make up for my shortcomings by taking care of everyone else.

Maybe what was different that night was the clarity with which I understood that this was not my responsibility.

It was so simple and easy that my reaction was "Huh."

I didn't need to cry about it. Maybe that's because it was all old news, or I had cried enough previously, but maybe it was just relief. So many times when there is a breakthrough it means more to work on. This was freeing.

I think that's where the hysteria came from: the sheer extent of how overwhelming it was to need to fix the whole world to be worth something. That was a big burden removed.

Even at the time I realized that there were still things to figure out. I still care about other people and want to do good things. There's still room for figuring out what I can do and doing it. That "Now what?" was already there.

I'm not saying I have that all figured out. 

I can say that Minari did not wreck me. I bet Coco still would, but I can probably be "normal" with most movies now. 

I do seem to feel things more now, in general. Apparently, recovering from the one really bad hangup requires less compartmentalization. That's okay; it is not overwhelming.

I suspect this is a good time to write about it because I just discovered something else that I really needed to do. 

Without saying that it's something I was eager to do, it was manageable.

That's worth a lot.