Birthday Reflections

So I'm 39 today. Mike sent a bouquet of daisies. He is in Singapore right now. My children are quietly coloring in the family room. I've had a visit from my mom in the wee hours of the morning to drop off a gift, a phone call from an adoptive mom to wish me a happy birthday and an email from another mom. I've also gotten a text message from my friend who is driving down to SF after a visit in Oregon. My life is full. I am loved by all the important people in my life.

Then why am I so unsettled? What torments me so? My brother and his selfish wife. They have gone out of their way to ignore, disregard, dismiss any efforts on my part to maintain a relationship with them. I've always tried not only for our sake but for the sake of our children and their only cousins. If anything, I think it's hard for kids when adults have issues they can't come to terms with which therefore messes up their own birthrights to be able to freely socialize with relatives. I've thought about this long and hard. I'm speaking from first hand experience where my own mother made it virtually impossible for me to call, contact, or meet with my cousins just because she had issues with my aunts and uncles.

Even though I may not like my SIL or would choose her to be one of my friends, I do acknowledge that she is the mother of my niece and nephew whom I love very much. And that I would feign civility and comraderie for our children. Why oh why can't she see that? I've even taken the blame for my bitchiness when they came to visit at the end of my pregnancy with H. My mother was visiting as well, and she badmouthed my SIL so much to me that I could not get myself to be welcoming upon her arrival.
After she caused my water to break and thus giving birth a week earlier than anticipated, I wrote her a letter apologizing to her for my behavior. I told her that I was jealous to have my mother's attention focus more on her grandson (her son, my nephew) than on me in my time of need. I told her their visit may have been untimely because I was in my 11th hour of impending birth but it was me who needed to grow up and get over that fact. I think she thought my apology was laughable.

Anyway, on her last visit to Oregon where she and her kids stayed at my parents' place for over 2 months, I got another opportunity to let her know that I am very sorry for any hurtful things I may have said to her in the past. I was teary as I proferred my regret and she was smug. Anyway, it felt good to ask forgiveness and forgive.

Apprently, it wasn't lasting. During my visit to NJ, this past month, she never even called to have me over or allow the kids to have a playday. She never even called to say good bye as we left NJ to return to Oregon to pack for our move to Singapore. It was incredibly enraging. I just about had a conniption. So here I am, thinking things over in my mind and I still find their behavior inexcusable and unforgiveable. Am I being too much???

Commitment is a rare commodity

We've listed our home as a rental. A Korean woman calls asking if it's available within a span of 24 hours. It turns out she is asking for a friend who is immigrating to Portland with her husband and middle school son. They are staying at a motel in the neighborhood and need a place ASAP. I thought I could help them out by offering them to stay with us while we get ready to move out and that the house would be empty by September 24th and their stuff would arrive on the 28th so everything seems perfectly timed, right? Nope.

I thought since they were Korean too, they could cook using my very stocked Korean kitchen, help themselves to a nice backyard grill and patio, sleep in air-conditioned rooms with each in a bed, all utilities paid for the month, etc., etc. They were supposed to call later in the day to come over to meet me. They never called. I wound up looking up their number in the caller ID and called them instead. They had to think about it, the friend said. Oh well, your loss.

I was thinking after that phone call that I wouldn't want people who say they're going to call and don't to live with us anyway, let alone rent our house. Imagine, I hear on the phone after weeks of backed rent, "We'll pay it today," and never do. I'd be waiting forever.

It reminds me of my dating days when I was swinging from guy to guy like Tarzan on a vine. Each time, I thought the conditions and timing were just right when I'd get hit with some lame break up excuse like, "I'm not ready for marriage yet," or "We need to live together first." Blah, blah. It's really difficult to meet people who are as committed as Mike and I are to each other and to our children. While I may complain and get ornery from time to time, the foundation based on the vows we exchanged was never shaky. This is on a larger level, I suppose, a little different from committing oneself to a one year home rental lease but Mike and I are the same way about the little things too.

Once we say we're going to do something, we just do it.

Process...messy but very necessary

We just returned from a 2 week trip to San Francisco and New York....well, New Jersey. I was not looking forward to seeing the in laws since our last visit in December. My MIL and I had what you'd call a falling out to which I responded with a letter to her in my December entry. I was contemplating showing it to her during our visit but decided to wait and see what would transpire from this one.

Well, she did it again. While H&T were horsing around taking turns dog piling on each other, she kept blaming T for being too aggressive on H. Then there was this incident after the playground where MIL helped H clean the bottoms of her feet in the car and sat back down. T then said, "Gamma, my feet too." To which she responded in Korean, "Did you hear that? Your son is asking me to clean his already clean feet too. What a strange child."
I was fuming. I retorted with, "It's totally normal that he wants equal treatment from his grandmother. I think it's cute. If you put a negative spin on it, anything can be interpreted as strange. Please try to normalize his behavior instead of pathologizing it. It doesn't help that you single him out this way each time he's asking for equal attention."

She then approached me at the end of the day and proclaimed that I am way too sensitive about her comments. To which I said, if I don't practice protecting him now, I'll nurture a habit of standing idly by each time his integrity has been violated. She openly admitted that often times, she finds herself reflecting on her own behaviors and thoughts and feels sad for herself. To her, T will always be seen in a different light than H and she surprises even her own self when she cannot come to terms with the conditional love she has for him. I appreciated her candor. She was willing to admit her faults.

In the end, she requested this of me. She asked to look upon her trespasses against T as a work in progress. That she did not instantly fall in love with him as she had with biologically born H. That it seems to be taking a lot longer for her to fully accept his idiosyncracies and character flaws. Bravo. Houston, we have reached a stepping stone.