Betsy Phillips's Blog, page 10

Why Must I Leave Me Here All Alone?

I just, Jesus, where to even start?

My brother tried to cancel Thanksgiving. The Thanksgiving he instigated up at my parents’ house that we’re all going to. Where we were all supposed to force my parents to talk about how they should be moving closer to one of us and where we’d talk frankly about whether they could afford to.

I’m upset that he’s backing out of going. TO THE THING HE ARRANGED. But I’m livid and pained by the fact that he tried to make it seem like the rest of us shouldn’t bother to go.

He’s not going because they might gossip about him at work. First, they’re plumbers. Is that a hotbed of gossip? Second, how is “Dude went to his parents for Thanksgiving” any kind of bad gossip?

Also my dad is dying. How many more Thanksgivings are we going to get all together?

And my plan had been to go to Arizona and have Thanksgiving with the Butcher, but we all rearranged out lives to be in Illinois.

And in spite of all this, I’m sure I’ll be subjected to 900 rounds of “Your brother is so great.”

I’m just tired.

The Butcher is coming next weekend. I need to get the house in some vague shape.

I also want to enjoy my time with him without spending all of it complaining about our other brother.

Whew, Lost the Thread There

Sometimes I wonder why I’m still blogging. My relationship to writing has changed, a lot. I don’t feel like writing shit down helps sort it out.

But also, I have a book coming out next year (?!) and I need a platform and… I don’t know.

I guess I’m just sorry I haven’t been around here much.

I’m listening to The Twisted Ones, which is a horror story with a dog hero, and working on two afghans.

I’m super busy at work. And I feel a little overwhelmed.

But things are good. I think. So, that’s what I know.

Spooky

Here’s the thing about my trip to the Franklin Masonic Lodge I wrote for the Scene.

The pictures are so great.

Nine

I’m up to my usual yearly woo and it’s been rough this year. I don’t know if I just am not in the right headspace or if the Universe isn’t in the right headspace or what.

But, weirdly, I have had a lot of non-woo conversations and such that have been deeply meaningful and insightful so maybe it’s not so much that I’m out of whack or the Universe is, but that where the interaction happens is different this year.

A Funk

I’ve been in a funk. Obviously. I just haven’t admitted it to myself. I’ve done the things one does to escape a funk–be funny, be delightful, be delighted in things, work on my hobbies, see my friends, etc.

But I’m just down. The world requires stuff of me that I don’t know how to give. Or it doesn’t want anything from me and my feelings are hurt about it.

The Shining Afghan

I’m at the point where I’m like “my god, will this never end?” I feel like I’ve been crocheting with this brown yarn forever. But I’m over half done with the brown part, which means I’m over half done with the afghan, which feels pretty good, considering I’ve been also running around and gallivanting.

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Drifting Adrift

My parents don’t want to live with or near my brother. I think that’s obvious. And I can’t blame them. He’s short-tempered and wants to be treated better than how he treats people.

I don’t know if they have the money to move, anyway.

I miss the Butcher. I miss having another set of eyes on this situation. I miss his perspective. I miss the feeling of having a person who will support me and who will help with my parents, no matter what.

Which, I hope, doesn’t come across as a knock on my friends. I have really good friends. If I need help, I can count the fuck on them.

But there’s a constant weighing in my mind of how much I can do for myself vs. how embarrassed I would be for my dad to act how he does to people I care about.

Bad Things Next

My parents are driving down here–8 hours in the car–today so that I can drive them 4.5 hours to my brother’s house so that they can be there for my niece’s birthday.

They have been “cleared by the doctor.”

No one in our family under the age of 45 thinks this is wise, but fuck us, I guess.

A thing I really, deeply appreciate about my brothers is that when I talked to each of them last night and I admitted I didn’t know what to do or what the best thing was and I was just scared and sad, they both said that they also didn’t know what the fuck to do and that we probably were going to fuck this up, but we were doing the best we could.

Maybe they’ve talked about this between themselves?

But it made me feel better. It’s just hard to accept that I don’t really know what’s happening and I don’t know what to do about it and that it’s unresolveable by me, so I just have to live here in the not-knowing.

Good Things First

I won two Best of Nashville awards–Best Historian and Best Short-Fiction Book.

Look at this surprisingly cute picture of me:

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And the Provost’s office sent me flowers!

Best of Nashville

I am legit crying. This is so nice.