the daily dub

Does anyone in the Sunnyvale/San Jose/Mountain View area need a roommate?

I’m headed home for a day or two, to get a little vacation from my vacation.

Should be a relaxing couple of days, followed (hopefully) by two days of skiing with my dad.

word.

My sister freaked out on me last night. She asked if she could crash at my place (without me there), and I said no. It’s one thing to come visit, but it’s entirely another thing to use me and my place when it’s convenient, and as an escape.

It’s my place, and it needs to remain my place.

After I told her no, she proceeded to attack me, personally.

What joy this Christmas has been…

I talked to my sister. She was aware that everyone was going to be here tomorrow.

I’m starting to realize that I’m letting these things get to me way more than they have to.

There is a parable about the Buddha and an angry young man [1]. The young man insults the Buddha viciously, and eventually gets frustrated that the Buddha is not effected by the insults.

The Buddha asks the young man, “If someone hands you a gift, and you refuse to receive it, to whom does the gift belong?”

Hearing that parable, which I serrendipitiously stumbled upon about 3 days ago, makes a lot more sense today. Realizing that I can either a) take all my mom’s drama, and all my sister’s drama, and all my families drama upon myself, and let it tear me apart, or b) refuse to accept these gifts, and remain calm and centered in myself gave me so much freedom and power.

I have been letting the holiday drama that is created by my family situation and my mother rip me to shreds. It has rocked my boat, but only because I accepted the burden.

Also, hearing why my parents got divorced made things make a TON more sense. Honestly, after my dad told me, from his perspective, why it happened, I had seen it for a while.

This year has been an odd one, indeed. I find myself, oddly enough, planning for a rapid escape from my parents’ houses.

It seems to me (and this is just my observation, which I’m told is actually pretty good) that my mom straight up lied to my sister last night.

My sister had a falling out with our uncle around Thanksgiving. She asked my mom if he would be here Christmas Morning (this is what I remember hearing). My mom said it would be just us kids, our grandparents, and our mom.

I had a ReallyBadFeeling™ about this from the time it happened. I had heard that everyone was coming up for Christmas dinner, so it didn’t make sense. This afternoon, I asked my mom who all would be here Christmas day, and sure enough, everyone, including this Uncle would be here.

So, either I completely misunderstood my sister’s question, or my mom lied through her teeth to manipulate my sister into being home for Christmas.

Either way, I am preparing myself to duck and run.

I’ve been advised by sage people to pre-confer with my sister, come up with some “code word” we can speak to each other that means “GetMeTheFuckOutaHere.” I think this is good advice.

I’ve been feeling, lately, that my mom dumps a healthy fuck-ton of guilt on us kids for not doing things the way she wants them done. These two things also happen to be some of my pet peeves… guilt, and telling me how to do things that i’m perfectly capable of figuring out on my own… thanks.

Impromptu backpacking trip, anyone?