Betsy Phillips's Blog, page 8

Day One

My parents arrived. My dad thinks I should find an old minister with health problems and marry him so that I can take care of him, so I can be “of use.”

I cried on the phone to the Professor after dinner.

Then I went to bed.

I was trying to explain to the Professor that one of the most insidious, but unexamined religious beliefs in my Protestant family is that happiness is evil, that life is hard and we all should be suffering in order to alleviate the suffering of others, but if that suffering alleviation ever crosses over into happiness, that’s a sign of evil.

I also think she’s right that a lot of people want to drag you into their misery so that you will both confirm for them that the misery they’ve chosen is the right thing (hence the pressure to get married from people in miserable marriages, etc.) and provide them a buffer between them and their misery.

But all that means is that there’s just this enormous gulf between me and my parents because my happiness is scary to them.

But being happy–at least more happy than sad–is the only way I’m going to survive this life.

Busting My Hump

[image error]

Y’all, this is 3/5 of the blanket. This pattern must have been to carpet a whole room at the Overlook.

I’m going to see the person I’m giving it to on Christmas Eve, but I’m also entertaining family, so I’m not sure if I’ll finish it. Which is frustrating because I’m so close.

A Break in the Gloom?

On Saturday I went to a party I didn’t feel like going to precisely because i didn’t feel like going to it. I hoped it would jar me in good ways.

I think it did. Knock on wood.

I got fairly far on finishing The Shining afghan, but I was out and about so much that I didn’t get as much done as I thought I would. I still feel good about it.

Remember the artist who needed my red yarn? I bought a piece from her yesterday.

[image error]

I am in love.

And I got asked to serve on the board of a preservation group! I said yes, but I also laughed and laughed.

I feel so fancy! Ooo, now I serve on a board. Good thing I have my grandmas’ pearls.

Ha ha ha. Lord. I just… well, whatever. I said yes.

And my parents seem to have accepted the fact that I’m not going to Georgia for Christmas. So? I don’t know? Maybe I can shelter a tiny ember of happiness and see if it will keep me warm.

And Now! The Poppies.

[image error]

And one daffodil, which is anatomically correct, but I’m not in love with it. Next one I do is going to be different.

Hollyhocks

[image error]

I made a couple of hollyhocks for my blanket! Hopefully the petals will be a little less curly once the afghan is washed, but even if not, I still love them.

I think the purple coneflower is still my favorite, though.

As nice as the flowers from patterns are, I’m really enjoying just looking at flowers and trying to figure out how to make them.

Flower Blanket

Argh! I wrote a big long post yesterday about this cool afghan I’ve started working on in spite of not being done with everything else I’m working on.

But y’all! Look.

[image error]

Some of these I have patterns for. Some I’m just making up. The blanket flower in the far back I made up (ha ha. A blanket flower on a blanket.) and the purple coneflower up front here I just made up.

But I can’t help but see a lot of nipples in here. Georgia O’Keeffe tried to prepare us for how much flower sex organs look like human sex organs, but I was not ready!

I want to make a hollyhock bloom, too, if I can.

In Minor Family Traumas

I told my parents I’m not going to Georgia for Christmas. It was not well met. They weren’t mad or anything. They just didn’t believe me. The Butcher says I’ll go.

Which, lord, is so fucked up. I mean, first of all, I highly doubt the Butcher told them I would go. I would bet all my money that the Butcher said I could ride with them if I was going.

But the part I love, the part that just gets me right in the chest, is this idea that there’s anyone else on this planet who knows me and what I’ll do better than I do and so whatever I say about my life can be overridden by that other person.

Let It Work

I went outside and laid in my back yard for a half an hour or so, in the dark, just staring up at the mostly light polluted sky, waiting, occasionally, for a star to wink at me or an airplane to fly over.

It’s hard to think about anything when you’re flat on your back on the ground, so I didn’t. I just cried a little bit and then I watched the black tree branches against the dark gray sky. And then I just laid there until I felt better.

I came back in the house and every time I started to feel anxious or sad, I just repeated to myself, “let it work.” Let the calm from laying on the ground looking at the dull sky do what it will do to me.

Eventually I went to bed. In the middle of the night, I woke up to this revelation. It may not be a revelation to those of you following along at home, but it was not something I had realized.

Every time something good happens to me, my family finds a way to ruin it, to knock me back down a peg or two. I don’t know if they do it consciously or not, but I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Hell Thanksgiving followed on the heels of my Best of Nashville stuff.

I’m afraid that, if they move here, they will ruin all my good stuff.

I think I would rather tank my whole life–ruin it myself before they can–than let them take this from me. And I had some pretty spectacular ideas about how to tank my life, ones that would have been deeply unfair to my coworkers. But things that would have taken me and this place off the table in terms of places they could go.

But, if they go to Georgia, they will suffer and they will have worse care than they would if they lived near me. I’m not trying to be a dick about my brother, but that’s just true. He won’t provide the level of care I’d provide.

Even if that level of care destroyed me emotionally.

Everyone knows it. My parents know it. My aunts and uncles know it. If you take my well-being out of the equation and you’re just looking at what’s best for my parents, obviously they should come here.

I’m not sure I’d survive that. Not mentally, anyway.

But the idea that I would encourage them to go where I know they’d get poorer care, where I know they would suffer some neglect, just because I want my good life? It feels so fucking selfish that I can’t stand it. It feels like my soul is being torn in two to even admit that out loud.

There’s a difference between making a lifeboat, putting the Butcher in it, and rowing with him away from the sinking ship and kicking your parents into the ocean so that you can stay in your lifeboat unbothered.

And when I try to weigh the right thing to do here, when I try to figure out what it is, exactly, I want to do, the thing I run straight into is that there are some very fundamental parts of myself that I don’t have good access to.

I have been trained since birth to be… I don’t even quite know how to put it into words… some kind of courtesan (?). It has been my job to be charming and cooperative and capable (but not so capable it makes men feel bad) and to make people like me. I’m witty. I’m fun to talk to. I know a lot of interesting things and can tell you about them in fun ways. I can keep a crowd occupied and delighted.

I find comfort in being able to do those things well. It feels familiar and I can just do it without having to think too hard about it. And I know if a lot of people like me, then I have a level of safety. And, I think, too, that I enjoy feeling like I have a huge web of people I can access if I need anything.

But do I like any of those things? Being in crowds that find me delightful? Charming people who otherwise would disregard me? Etc. Etc. Etc.

I don’t know.

In some ways, I suspect that I don’t. I mean, if you look at how I’ve arranged my life when I’m not thinking about it, it doesn’t look like it. I don’t like to have people over. I don’t seek out crowds. I prefer to spend a lot of time alone, because when I’m alone, I don’t have to be any way.

But my point is that all my training, the way I live my life around others, is to provide others comfort and delight. It makes me feel satisfied to be able to do that. I know it’s a skill and I take pride in being good at it.

But I don’t think I would have chosen for myself to have those skills. Or maybe I would have. I don’t know. You can’t run two versions of your life simultaneously to try to get a better feel for what’s some core you and what’s training. Nature vs. nurture. If science hasn’t figured it out, I’m not going to, you know?

But I suspect I would not have.

I am this way, at least in part, because my parents trained me to be, because my being like this was useful to them.

This feels like a lot of threads to try to pull together here at the end.

But, if my way of being with others was instilled in me by my parents because it was useful to them, then, obviously, some amount of distress I feel about not wanting to care for them even though I could and I would be the best choice, is distress they wanted me to feel in times like this.

I am supposed to put the family’s well-being ahead of my own. In fact, me being too well (or having too much well-being) is taken as proof that I am not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. If I’ve got this great life, it’s because I’m not spending the emotional capital I should on them. My great life is evidence of me cheating at my chores, so to speak.

But what if I am running both simulations? What if my good life here is one way my life could go and how I feel when I’m with them is another way my life could go? In both simulations, I do not want to give them any more access to the parts of myself I like–even if those parts are dramatically different sizes in either options.

I don’t think I can save myself from them and save them from themselves.

And I think I’m on the verge of betraying my whole upbringing and my aunts and uncles who want what’s best for my parents. And my parents. My family.

I think I’m on the verge of putting them in harm’s way to save myself.

And I feel like an obscenity, like a monster. Like what kind of person would do this?

Probably me. I think me.

Too Old to Self-Destruct

The doctor said this is the normal, sane reaction to the kind of Thanksgiving I had and that I shouldn’t expect to just bounce back. I have to allow time to process it.

I was on Xanax all week, but it made me weepy and, I think, gave me a weird headache, though maybe that was the weepies, so I stopped taking it. I’ve been sleeping weird since then. I tried to tire myself out completely on Friday by moving huge boxes of books around all afternoon, but I only lasted a couple of hours and I still stayed up kind of aimlessly just not feeling like going to bed.

Today I tried to get out of the house to improve my mood, but I just did all my errands feeling so super pissed. I wanted to get drunk or something, but then I didn’t want to spend all tomorrow feeling like shit.

So, here I am. Out of sorts. Trying to feel my way back without chemical help.

I Do Feel Like I'm Losing My Mind

I’m going to the doctor this morning. I’m going to try to get some of this shit settled out. I mean, my family is… well… them. But I’m not bouncing back. I’m sleeping weird. I’m in a raging jealousy that my coworker has a social life, for no good reason, when in real life I like him and I want him to be happy here. And I don’t want to hang out with him myself, because it seems like all he does is drink and stay up all night and I like to not drink and sleep a lot.

Maybe I’m jealous in part because he got a date just by walking into a place and being responsive to someone while a hungover grouchy mess and I have walked into many places in Nashville being vaguely responsive to someone while a grouchy mess and no one has ever asked me out in those circumstances.

The complicating thing is that I really like my life. But a question that sits on the back burner in my mind is “If I’m so great, why doesn’t anyone love me?”

The answers are that my family is right and that I’m not so great. I’m a sad sack of shit to be pitied. Or that I am so great and I have a hard time recognizing love that doesn’t hurt me, which…. god… is depressing.

But also, I like this life, how it is right now. And I want to feel good (even great) in it without needing the validation of someone loving me in order to feel it.

And I am loved, deeply loved, by my friends and intellectually I know it. I’ve never been any more lonely than I’ve wanted to be. I’m also very loved by my community, which is another amazing blessing. Not everyone gets public validation of how much people like them. I get it pretty regularly.

I’m so lucky. And yet I can’t bring my whole self along to believe it.