Ayn's Multiple World

Christmas Eve

Good morning. This is me. And, it’s Christmas Eve. We’ve been up for quite a while and it’s not even 6 am. I’m so excited because we got to talk to Thom in an IM this morning. It wasn’t very long because he was working. It was enough to say Merry Christmas and we set up with him a possible opportunity to take “the kid” shopping tomorrow. We have budgeted about $100 for each of the boys. Maury knew in advance what the amount was and he suggested that I could even give it to him yesterday so we did.

We explained to Thom that we could go to an online store and he would choose the gift(s) and I could just use my credit card to pay for it. That way he got exactly what he wanted and I could feel good about getting him something nice. I’m so happy about this idea. He just needs a site that is local enough to ship directly to him and I need a place that accepts American credit cards. Before he agreed to really considering the idea, he mentioned that he was going to get a new shaver within a couple of days – SO of course we jumped on that right away … we can do it, we can.

He said as long as it wasn’t a cheap – like $10 one. And, we were like Thom – we’re giving you a $100 and YOU choose which one  So happy, so happy!

Like we said he said tomorrow. It’s about 8:45 pm on Christmas Eve there and he’s on a 12 hour shift. I was figuring we could reach him about 4 pm his time … after he sleeps, before dinner and the next shift … if we stay up until 1 am tonight … Maybe we can catch the Santa sleigh all the way to Japan!

In other news … well it’s been a good news period. The biggest things were that we got to meet Jillian and Jon came over again too. Hehehe after Jon ate and had a smoke … he zonked out on the couch – even though the other three of us were talking in the room. I saw him curled up almost cold like so I reached for and he accepted a blanket. Awe what a Christmas gift!

I’m not going to be able to do justice to the official meeting of Rich’s daughter.

It was so wonderful … well except the part that she was worrying about her mother. The Mom somehow figured that the two kids were over here meeting me. Jon had pretty much decided that they weren’t going to lie to the mother. I don’t know how she knew – maybe through her sister, but the thing was she went a little crazy as to phone calls and text messages to her kids. After a while Chris tried to contact his siblings and Rich … and it was so bad that even Rich was called by her. I really think we can count on one hand how many times she’s talked to Rich in the last couple of years.

Rich took the view that he wasn’t going to get more involved than just having his kids at his own place, and Jon took the view he’d talk to his mother in good time, but not right away. Jillian talked to her mother a couple of times, but I think there was probably a lot of yelling and maybe some theatrics. Don’t know much more than that.

I do have my own perspective as to what it meant to me. I didn’t like to see especially Jillian feeling that much pressure … basically on account of me. Jon seemed to think the mother would calm down in time, but we’re thinking like … it’s been a couple of years in the making and they have been divorced for 4-5 months after a two year separation. At some point one might think that life is going to go on and people will advance their situation. I don’t blame her for being upset, but I don’t like that her upset becomes so much of the kids business. They are going through their own thoughts and feelings about the changes in their lives over the last couple of years. All the time they didn’t know about Rich and us – he had tried to take on the burden of our situation without the kids being affected. Now it’s like the mother is trying to push her affect onto the kids – so they all have to take care of her. That doesn’t seem real fair, but the thing is that in a sense she’s trying to manipulate me having a relationship with Rich’s kids … and if like it happened finally yesterday that there was a relationship that was more direct, then I feel like she’s trying to imply guilt or suffering as if saying to me personally, if you insist on meeting my kids SOMEONE is going to pay and everyone will be miserable … most likely because that’s the way she feels, but also because she manipulates.

I’m not saying I’m above manipulating, I think in actuality it’s a big part of who I am. I always feel like we’re in the middle of orchestrating one thing or another.

I don’t do it to be mean or over controlling, I just like to set up the best situation for myself and the people I meet. I think if most people were honest they too would understand that they manipulate. You don’t have to be overbearing or negligent to others care to set up your own desires. Pretty much that’s a lot to do with Christmas. Each family and community tries to set-up an ideal situation for their loved ones.

In a good situation, you want just to open the doors in allowing others to feel good – you don’t set up people to feel bad. I don’t want even the mom to feel bad, I know she has a head of her some honestly hard feelings to deal with. As a mom though … I’m against trying to put that kind of anger on the kids.

Saying all this at this point though, we need to reflect on a situation between me and two of the kids this week.

I don’t remember which day it was, but emotionally we were pretty much a train wreck. We’d been arguing with Rich about whether or not the pictures could go up or if he was going to help them go up. It was draining. I think in part we were communicating in the blog in and out of that situation, so we aren’t going to go back through it now. Just the main thing was that we had been arguing and had by then stopped. I remember we were laying on the couch with Rich and we had started to cry. We went through some very hard emotions. It didn’t take too long to figure out though that it wasn’t about Rich, it was the pressure in relation to the boys and granddaughters.

We had our phone near us so we texted Joe and told him we were considering canceling the holiday plans, and then we thought a little bit more in this emotional state and then texted Maury to say that we were canceling the holiday plans. It had transposed from being a thought to a reality in our minds. That was what started the crying – because we’d separated from them because we were feeling so bad that nobody had made arrangements even after our efforts to make sure there was going to be a holiday visit with them. Joe pretty much blew us off altogether which might have been the right way to handle us. Maury texted back the question, “Y?” I had already started crying and Rich confirmed we’d been in a funk most of the day. I just texted back to Maury saying “because of lack of interest.” He then tried to call and further text, but we’d put the phone down.

I don’t remember, but I think that’s about when we went to the bedroom because we were crying so hard. We really felt neglected. I think Maury later said that he and Joe would come over sometime either Saturday or Sunday on the 2nd or 3rd, but that didn’t seem to make us feel better, because we were still not being able to see our granddaughters. After a short while of being in the bedroom and crying hard, then Rich came in and helped us to feel better, and then we followed him back to the living room and he just let us cuddle and the crying eventually subsided.

We were calm again by the time Maury walked in. He had come home at a natural time for him after work, and before he’d go out again. These trips are usually in and out and just long enough to change from his work clothes to his going out clothes.

When he walked in he kinda questioned out loud – Are you still in a funk? Rich said you would have to ask her, and we mumbled something like maybe sorta just alittle.

And, then Maury continued walking to his room pretty quick like – normal. He seemed exasperated with us. Rich tried to coach us into talking to him, but we’d gotten scared of Maury again and said we were going to our room, so we did and we closed the door. There were slowed down dribbly tears.

In about 5 minutes, Rich came in and said we could come out now because Maury had left. Rich just said … you can see the granddaughters on Saturday morning before we go out to meet Jillian and her partner. This seemed to create some sense of relief although we hadn’t figured directly how much it was affecting us emotionally not to be given a chance to see the girls. We’re back to feeling manipulating in that because we were so upset things turned around and then we were being able to SEE the girls. This part made me feel terrible, but was only afterward … We had been emotional, but not thinking that there would be this outcome. We did have a meltdown similar in some respect with our boys as Rich’s ex was having with her family.

There were some subtle differences in that she probably is going to carry on pretty bad for a long period of time. We had just said like those three things … first we’re not going to have a holiday get together, second was the statement because of lack of interest, and third because we weren’t sure whether we were done yet … when Maury came home.

I’m confused even now as to whether that was more or less manipulative or whether it was just expressing my feelings. It stopped after Rich told us that we were going to see our grandchildren. We get frustrated at the kids, but the part of being OVERLY angry is over. I think in general our anger is just the frustration of not being able to see our granddaughters. We hold no ill-will against the boys although we think sometimes they are a bit thick in their thinking that not seeing the girls was going to not affect us in some way. We also get frustrated with Joe for having so little time to “bother” with our “stuff.” I don’t think we way overwhelmed anyone, but it’s a hard feeling when someone asks for some kind of attention and is basically punished by no attention. Maybe because our asking was so immature that it didn’t respect an adult interaction from Joe. But, then not to react at all … maybe that wasn’t rally the mature way to go either. Maybe it was like kid to kid reaction. SO in general … we can’t hold things against Joe. He just played the cards he was dealt.

What I don’t want is to think of myself as a bad person for being emotional. I had to be responsible for it in that it doesn’t make sense to hold onto bad feelings … I shouldn’t catastrophist, but we’re not all there yet. This felt like a crisis and then later like a crisis diverted. I think I’m pretty much over the hard part of the holiday … well, I guess there’s a little more back problem to it. Last time Joe and Maury were here, they basically ignored me and watched television with very little outward response to the situation and the girls. I pretty much played with the girls and could only appreciate that there was conversation between the guys on things in general a little, but mostly about what was happening on television.

To Joe’s credit he had asked a question as to the big computer not working and he volunteered to fix it and I think Maury volunteered to help too. I couldn’t be happier than that. It was a nice gesture. He did it on his own without me thinking to ask him. I think that’s his preference in general – so it worked all around.

We’d not thought of him as to making the machine work, but bother Rich and us were very appreciative.

Ok, there’s been some kind of break here in that we had some cheese and refreshed our coffee. Things are about ready to move on. On the positive side … I would like to think a bit about having Jillian and Jon here … this time stepping away from the mother trying to influence the situation negatively, because other than her efforts to text and call people here it was a very, very nice visit!

Jillian came first. It took a lot of patience waiting for her. We had cleaned for a bit while Rich was getting the food, but we were ready for her about an hour or so before she got here. Rich had gone to work after the shopping so we got to pretty much set our own pace and him his pace. The airport is like 15 minutes from work, so he was located well. We had chosen to work on the fabric cutting from the time we finished picking up til she got here. I knew I couldn’t concentrate enough to be doing the fish quilting, but it did give me something to work on to hold down the nerves.

Rich made a comment after he got here that reflected his knowledge that both of us between me and the daughter were probable nervous. This wasn’t anything at the time that either of us seemed to want and acknowledge. I think Rich could be included in that thought in that it seemed to take him quite a few moments to fumble through getting things ready in the kitchen for our lunch like snack. He’d really put himself into the thinking through of all that prior to her being here. He had gotten shrimp and cocktail sauce, four versions of crackers or chips, tons of cheese and sausage, and then vegetables and spinach dip. There were many options for drinks, though it didn’t seem to come up that alcoholic drink were not especially planned for or missed. We did have some Jack in the cupboard and Margarita mix, and one lone beer in the fridge, but not asked for or missed.

I think Jillian was hungry, but did not eat an especially large meal. When Rich finally figured he’d put out all he could he sat down with us and the three of us talked. I don’t really remember down the line what we all talked about. It felt comfortable, but with some ackwardness of it having been the first meeting. I felt shy and wasn’t sure what to ask or say, though things were being squeaked in.
Jillian is very beautiful and has a unique face that is very pleasant to look at.

She seems very grown-up, but we were aware throughout that this was Rich’s daughter and jewel. She seemed fitting to have in this honored position. She seemed very positive and energetic … in general a very sparkly person.

We gave her at some point a chance to ask questions about us, but she didn’t really have a lot to ask … it was more an allowance of us trying to give her information we thought might be missing. She did say that we might have questions we might like to ask her. This put a very nice perspective on things that came out more later after Jon had gotten here and fallen asleep. It was like wow … she’s here and we can start putting things together fresh and direct. We’ve so long asked Rich …. What did she say? What does this mean? How is she? Is she ok?

When we were asking questions, it was at first like we didn’t know anything, but then small things she would say helped us to realize that we did know somethings and other things we’d only guessed at, so we asked questions that we needed to help start fill gaps. One of the most important questions to us came out pretty muddled. It was asked when Jon was up too so it given that extra importance or protection, I suppose.

Basically we had wanted to clear our mind on something that had been bothering us.

When Jillian had let her father know that she had some of our material to read, we had felt her own protection of her father, in that she was asking questions to Rich like do you know how much she is saying about you on-line? We figured that she was protecting her father rightly as a daughter might, but then it came to questions we had in our own right of being able to write about us, and us and our sweetie.

It took us a while to say this and get through figuring out what our question really was. Jillian and Jon were patient with us … and I think something was said in our fumbling that made Jon laugh which allowed us to feel more comforted in our struggling to figure this part out. Basically, not could we write, because even at that we knew that it wasn’t up to Jillian to give us permission, but in a sense how could we better write which was good and important to us without offending boundaries of Rich or Rich and his family.

It had been something throughout our writing that we’ve been dealing with. I’m not sure in the end conclusion how much of this did we figure out, but Jillian tried to put us at ease as to her own position. She’d basically come to that we could write anything we wanted, but that the real problem for her was in discovering how much her father had lied to her. I think in our roly-poly general discussion of the day, we wanted her to know that her father battled his own demons as to means of relating to kids, but that it had been done more honorably in that he tried to make as few ripples to the family structure as was possible.

We did also say thought I think its been said or read before that we’d told our own boys 12 years ago, and that although Rich wasn’t happy about that in general, we did come to an agreement that I would set-things in our own way with our own kids and that he would do the same with his kids. We in general came to disagreements, in that I always thought his kids should know more, but it wasn’t my business to interfere in his deciding for himself how things should be.

Somewhere early on in the conversation we also expressed maybe more than once that Rich was dealing with a lot now in that for so long he’d tried to control everything that was going on he would allow only so much knowledge to each of us about the other, and now it was like everyone was being their own free agent and that we had to give Rich a lot of credit for these general changes that were happening in and around his life. Basically, I hope the end conclusion is that life will be easier and more enjoyable to him as we each find our rightful places in his life. There is no doubt in my mind he did what he did because of whatever background he brought into his relating to others and because he loved people all around and didn’t want to see him hurt. I also believe that somewhere in his and his wives not relating well that he’d found people to love him in all earnestness. I think this applies to his kids and parents, his best friends, and even in some of his acquaintances in his other worlds like at work, doing officiating, fishing, card playing etc.

There’s something I think that comes from Sesame Street where one of the characters says or maybe this is from a dinosaur cartoon or SOMEwhere where the character says from his own perspective … you got to love the baby! Hehehe in Rich’s way of being he is at least my baby and we love him dearly. I think that is at the bottom of all this … Rich and all of us just want to be loved. When it didn’t happen between he and his wife he found it elsewhere. The kids are right too though in that he should have been more honest with them – they are tough enough or would be, but from Rich’s perspective … he did things as fast as what felt safe enough all around in that he was head of his household and made the calls as best he could.

Hmm, lost in non-thoughts … time to start this again fresh – which direction should we go. Hmm, maybe a little housekeeping thought here. We are on Rich’s computer because my big computer is still without a keyboard and my netbook has a virus – or more like malware. YUCK YUCK! I only got a little desperate this morning until I realized that Rich wasn’t using his computer and now that it isn’t JVS, he probably wouldn’t mind if I shared it with him while he’s sleeping. I’m starting to think he’s enjoying himself on vacation in that he’s still sleeping. He’s within the normal bubble in that it’s only 7:15 am. He’ll sleep naturally for another ½ hour and then we’ll see how much more or less sleep he grabs. We’re really not for waking up sleeping people.

Ahh, just used the washroom and we took our medicine. That was a good idea. We don’t want to miss any bit of being awake on Christmas Eve. Maybe we should think of presents again. We already explained that Maury had given us his gift which was nice. It is a picture frame big enough for 3 different size pictures, and on the bottom it says in big black letters “grandkids”

Whoops, we moved on. It’s now about 8:30 am and Rich has been up for about an hour. He woke up after we last thought about it. We talked about 20 minutes and then he turned on the fishy shows. That’s what’s happening now. He was nice enough not to bounce me off the chair that sits behind his computer. He’s doing a little struggling between work thoughts and being off thoughts. I’m glad to say that he’s chosen the fishing show. I don’t really have a break in time that says we’re moving on.

Today is Bob day. I’m not sure what time he is coming over, but we’re going to have something to eat here and then we’re going to Avatar. I hope that is going to be fun without too much scary stuff.

posted by Ann Marie @ 12/25/2009 11:58:00 AM Comments: 0