Blessed Beyond Measure

Forgive me for waxing sentimental, but gimme a break. It's the holidays and there's so much going on, it can be hard to step back and look at what's making your life crazy to begin with.

Within 24 hours of being laid off from my full-time job of 4 1/2 years, I had enough freelance work to get me through the rest of the year. Within a week, I had hired another writer to pick up the slack!

I just had a Christmas party where around 30 people attended....almost all of whom I consider very close friends, and many of whom I've known for many, many years. One I met my junior year in high school in Kentucky. He moved to Charleston about two years before I did, and it was because of a visit there that I decided I could "make it" away from Kentucky. There were several friends who I met during grad school. All of them traveled anywhere from 1 1/2 to three hours to attend my party. And there were several new friends I've made within the past year who have become so close to me that it's difficult to imagine my life before they came into it.

While my life has its share of sticky moments (see "Inner Child Run Amuck" and "Family Drama" entries), I can't really say I have many complaints. I have a lovely home in a great city (not without its problems, but it could be MUCH worse), and a busy life full of activities, friends, and countless opportunities to grow and improve myself.

I am blessed beyond measure!
OB

Family Drama

On Tuesday, my brother came to Mom asking her for $5,000. She asked why, and he refused to tell her but said it was extremely important and urgent. She told him she couldn't give him that much money without consulting Dad first.

So, in a bold move, my brother went to my dad's office and did the same song and dance. My mom was surprised that he'd do this because there had been so much hostility between him and Dad that he declared he'd never ask Dad for another thing as long as he lived. So this was rather unexpected that he'd go to Dad's office.

Dad gave him the money with virtually no questions asked. Dad DID say that he wants himto "get help," and David said he would.

Within an hour, my brother was gone. He sent Mom an e-mail later that day saying that he was OK but that he would be out of contact for the next several days. He sent her an e-mail on Sunday saying he's going back to China because that's what "God" is telling him to do.

I can't tell you how pissed I am over this! I don't know who I'd rather choke: my brother for manipulating my parents out of $5,000 or Dad for giving it to him! I told Mom that Dad passed up a golden opportunity to lay down the gauntlet with my brother and insist that he wouldn't see a slim dime without getting help first.

My brother is holding my parents hostage with their weakness yet again. He purposefully made my parents believe he was in some kind of trouble and played on my parents' fear that their child was in some sort of peril that they needed to rescue him from. I don't know why on earth they feel so powerless as parents. I mean, they're single-handedly supporting their 42-year-old, mentally unstable, unemployable son....seems to me they're in about as perfect position as they could be in to make an ultimatum: force him to get help or have cut him off. But they fear that if they don't acquiesce to his wishes, he'll leave anyway and walk the streets broke. The way I see it, it's better for him to be homeless in Kentucky with no financial means to leave than giving him the money to go back to Asia and wind up broke there with no one to go to if he does encounter trouble!

I told Mom that I wasn't sure I could go home for Christmas unless this whole thing is resolved. The second Dad gave him the money, he regretted it (just like he did when he gave my sister's then-husband $10K for a Christmas tree lot that funded their heroin habit, or when my brother lied about needing money for a trip to see my grandparents in OK and wound up broke in Alaska and needing a very expensive last-minute flight home).

I told Mom that if I went home and Dad started bitching about the $5K, I wouldn't be able to control myself and would have to speak my mind about it, which would do no good at all. I don't want Dad to feel worse than he already does. But I'm so bleedin' mad at both of them! I asked for far less than that from them to put down enough on my condo to avoid PMI....and I was going to pay them back! But they couldn't because, "We're still recovering from the $10,000 we gave your sister's ex-husband for the Christmas tree lot." That was over 10 years ago!

So, of course, they feel guilty for again funding the ineptitude of one child while another one is trying to make her own way in the world with no handouts. I don't want them to feel guilty because I don't expect anything at all from them. But it seems to me that's the way they prefer it: to let their children bleed them dry, act like martyrs, and then feel guilty about it. I just don't want to have any part in it.

Whew...I feel better!
OB