(morning writing, f&f)

[elainegrey]

Saturday: Ice here over a dusting of snow.  As the sun came up some low clouds formed in the trees, fog of a sort, adding to the glow around the sparkle of light in the ice.

Now midday, a slow rain of melt water spatters while birds call and hunt for food. The sunny side of our yard is completely clear, so i'm sure they will forage well.

I'm in a cranky mood....

Sunday ruminations:

It's possible the gratitude query i wrote about on Saturday put me in a funk. Hard to know. Still in a funk this morning. Some feelings about an episode when visiting with my brother's family, where Dad gifted antique rifles to all the male niblings in what appeared to be an awkward "Oh my god it's D's birthday and i didn't think of a gift and i know i'll give him one of the guns but what about the other boys oh i'll give them all guns i'll just have their parents carry them out and present them" event. The list of problematic things Christine was stuck ruminating over with some anger wasn't short.

There's been a little theme around my brother's family's visit, and i think the passing on of things is part of it. I'm wishing Dad would choose to downsize now and plan to move somewhere easier for him to maintain and for him to socialize. This holiday visit what was supposed to be a chance for us to help dad with stuff sort of trailed off. Right after Christmas, we siblings and Dad had a conversation where N expressed that Dad should feel free to sell, but then it seems things backed off.  Dad's decisions are all tangled with my brother's moving back to the states and my brother's uncertainty about what's next for him.

N said something to my sister about him being the only one without a home here in the Carolina's with an implication that he should get the house.  My sister and i suspect that my brother and his wife haven't been happily married for a long time. Their youngest is 12. With the middle and academically and athletically successful son headed to college this fall, N's wife M and the youngest are moving back to the states this summer. One gets a sense that my brother gets to figure his own stuff - - where he'll live and work -- out on his own.

I'm feeling a little fragile around my experience with Mom's rejection and dismissal  of us right after Christine's transition, and the sort of we'll just pretend it  never happened current state. Christine certainly will never get past it since Dad is not capable of actually interacting in a non-self-centered manner and apologizing. And the Mom who rejected us was gone before she died.

My sister L is fierce in her anger that Dad claims he's split his is estate equally but then drifts towards giving my brother the house -- there's some baggage around that space that she grew up in and later spent some time raising her children in -- and she sees my brother as wealthy and yet getting the "Lost Son" treatment.

Years ago i described my brother to my sister as living near light speed: emotionally time wasn't passing for him while she and i were growing and changing. And now my brother is approaching the same time frame of reference and sees us with our homes in the Carolina woods, and i think he's jealous. He has regrets about professional choices he's made, he's angry that the landing he saw for himself in a government policy role is being burnt to the ground by the incoming administration, and he's got an entitled streak a mile wide.

Meanwhile i'm looking at the lottery of our genes, with Mom's dementia, one of her aunt's dementia, her mom's early death compared to her father, hearty into his late 90s, my dad, still hale in his mid 80s, his mother, healthy until the end at 104. I know i haven't cared for my body and it needs attention. I have dreams for this property. I still spend time depressed. How should i be spending my gifts? Engaged in my siblings' and father's troubles uninvited? No.