It's amazing how out of place I feel here. The drive here was delightful. I felt so open and peaceful and ready to engage with whatever was waiting for me. That's all gone now.
As soon as I arrived in strathmere and started talking with my family I started to despair. I always forget how much I've drifted from their ideology, their worldview. The return is painful. I get so much reinforcement from the people I surround myself with that it's easy to imagine that everybody thinks and feels as I do. I came here prepared for whatever reactions they had to me. It was my reactions to them that threw me. My sister just finished an interview for a position with a big drug company, selling drugs to doctors. Everyone was congratulating her and telling her how much money she'd make. I was as shocked and disturbed as if she'd just announced that she'd applied for a job as Satan's helper. I couldn't look at any of them. I stared out the window telling myself not to pick a fight.
When I got a chance to talk to my Mom alone I displayed a dazzling bit of projection, asking her how Sandy was doing and saying that she seemed hard and unhappy to me. Mom said she was doing great. That she was frustrated by her situation with Todd ( the boyfriend she left for abandoning her at a wedding but who has pursued her to get her back ever since) , but that she was happy. Then I asked her how I was doing. She said that I was running away from pressures, that I wanted to escape, that I was doing fair.
Dad woke up from his afternoon nap and mom went in to take hers and I got to have a conversation alone with him too. This was the best, most connecting conversation I had today despite an argument we got into about whether I should pay off him or the credit card debt first when I sell the business. He said that his only regret was pulling me out of Gainsville where I was happy. I found this really touching and big hearted of him. At one point, seemingly out of nowhere he told me about a letter he'd just gotten from a younger friend of his. The letter was a heartfelt thanks for the difference my father had made in his life; two pages of gratitude. Dad got a tear in his eye as he told me about it. The guy was the guy I hired to put in the carpet at Gail's. He was a crude, loudmouthed drunk, and to hear of his praise for my father and to see how he was moved by that praise made me very miserable. I can't wait to pay him the money I owe; though I got my first glimmer tonight that this won't be enough. I can pay him, and maybe I can even pay him more, but I can never go back and pay him on time.
I walked to Gar's house this afternoon, and I felt really uncomfortable the whole way. This is not the same place it was when I grew up. It got rich and cold somewhere along the way. I'm anxious to leave. When did I become so disgusted by wealth? These enourmous houses, convertable cars, fashionable people make me sick and afraid. I grew up here. Why do I feel like a pretender on these streets?
The beautiful yard, right on the bay that Garwood and I played on as kids is gone without a trace. In Its place is a monstrosity of a house that literally dwarfs the original which still sits next to it. The extravagance of that thing, while I know that Gar's mom will be slowly forced out of her more modest home by the ever rising taxes makes me sick. I just want to go home. I wish Gar was here. I miss him.
As soon as I arrived in strathmere and started talking with my family I started to despair. I always forget how much I've drifted from their ideology, their worldview. The return is painful. I get so much reinforcement from the people I surround myself with that it's easy to imagine that everybody thinks and feels as I do. I came here prepared for whatever reactions they had to me. It was my reactions to them that threw me. My sister just finished an interview for a position with a big drug company, selling drugs to doctors. Everyone was congratulating her and telling her how much money she'd make. I was as shocked and disturbed as if she'd just announced that she'd applied for a job as Satan's helper. I couldn't look at any of them. I stared out the window telling myself not to pick a fight.
When I got a chance to talk to my Mom alone I displayed a dazzling bit of projection, asking her how Sandy was doing and saying that she seemed hard and unhappy to me. Mom said she was doing great. That she was frustrated by her situation with Todd ( the boyfriend she left for abandoning her at a wedding but who has pursued her to get her back ever since) , but that she was happy. Then I asked her how I was doing. She said that I was running away from pressures, that I wanted to escape, that I was doing fair.
Dad woke up from his afternoon nap and mom went in to take hers and I got to have a conversation alone with him too. This was the best, most connecting conversation I had today despite an argument we got into about whether I should pay off him or the credit card debt first when I sell the business. He said that his only regret was pulling me out of Gainsville where I was happy. I found this really touching and big hearted of him. At one point, seemingly out of nowhere he told me about a letter he'd just gotten from a younger friend of his. The letter was a heartfelt thanks for the difference my father had made in his life; two pages of gratitude. Dad got a tear in his eye as he told me about it. The guy was the guy I hired to put in the carpet at Gail's. He was a crude, loudmouthed drunk, and to hear of his praise for my father and to see how he was moved by that praise made me very miserable. I can't wait to pay him the money I owe; though I got my first glimmer tonight that this won't be enough. I can pay him, and maybe I can even pay him more, but I can never go back and pay him on time.
I walked to Gar's house this afternoon, and I felt really uncomfortable the whole way. This is not the same place it was when I grew up. It got rich and cold somewhere along the way. I'm anxious to leave. When did I become so disgusted by wealth? These enourmous houses, convertable cars, fashionable people make me sick and afraid. I grew up here. Why do I feel like a pretender on these streets?
The beautiful yard, right on the bay that Garwood and I played on as kids is gone without a trace. In Its place is a monstrosity of a house that literally dwarfs the original which still sits next to it. The extravagance of that thing, while I know that Gar's mom will be slowly forced out of her more modest home by the ever rising taxes makes me sick. I just want to go home. I wish Gar was here. I miss him.
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