It's Very Confusing

When you lose the power to reconcile yourself to someone you love. Someone in your own family, who has been there at every holiday. Every wedding, every party. In the photographs since you were born. Even since before you were born.

It's not like breaking up with a boyfriend, or a falling-out with a friend. It's much, much harder.

This person has pictures of me in her house, as a baby and all through my childhood. We have pictures of her in our house. She is assigned to be my godmother. She was at my mother's funeral, and we cried together.

She has been a guest in our home. All of my family have been guests in her home. But not anymore.

Not me, anyway.

It didn't take much to get expelled from the household; tensions during a family outing turned into an official "I don't want to see you anymore."

Shamefully, I admit that I was so hurt -- I agreed immediately.

I know something is wrong with this person. She becomes more and more nervous at each occasion we have to visit. Her temper flares so often now, I wonder if the trouble isn't medical - a chemical problem, or a psychiatric one.

It wasn't fair of me to give up so easily; to get upset and lose my composure. I've never been smooth under fire. I'm even less so after a long day.

So when she came down on me, in public, in the presence of other members of my family who had (until then) been having a relatively pleasant time, I snapped. I didn't have the finesse to be an adult to someone who used to be an adult to me.

To be fair, I wasn't being treated like an adult. Being an adult, in the school I've learned it from, involves compromise and patience. Not deference, not resignation. Certainly not public humiliation.

Nevertheless, I'm ashamed. My failure to keep cool cut the day short for everyone involved. Friends went home early and family split up. Worst of all, the one person who needed this vacation the most - my own father - was rudely and unnecessarily pulled into the fray.

This is the thing that really hurts me. I let myself break down, and my failure was used to hurt someone I love. My father, for whom I am very concerned, who is already coping with much more stress than is due him. It has ruined his one vacation, and probably severed his own ties with this woman.

We are leaving for home a day early, skipping a large family meeting. The stress is too much for anyone involved to continue as planned. My father will undoubtedly spend the whole night worried for my sister and myself, as we are both sleeping (without any feasible recourse) at the home of the very person who would like me never to return.

I can't undo any of the day's errors. I can only resume my adult persona and issue apologies to those who were involved, and hereafter always maintain my distance from this person.

This member of my family.

Christmas in Chicago

I tried so hard not to title this post "Christmas in Chicago." I really did. But when they sing the damn song for the finale AND the encore, it's nigh impossible to get it out of your head for several hours thereafter.

Lemme 'splain.

We went to the annual symphony+chorus Christmas show downtown today. My aunt (the same one from the previous post) sings alto and managed to get us some really good seats. The show was better than the last time I'd seen it. It changes every year, of course, but the old format of "let's do some goony plot with Santa" was held back until after the intermission, so the first hour was great. They didn't even bring out the obligatory children's ensemble until the second hour, so we got to hear all-pro music for a while.

THEN they did the goony plot with Santa. It wasn't bad, but... well, they always end it with a song by Gary Fry, who is known more for writing commercial jingles than Christmas classics. The score in question is "Christmas in Chicago," which sounds very much like a pitch for tourism and very little like something you'd gather around the piano to sing after Christmas dinner. And then there's a grand finale where the plot with Santa gets a happy ending... and then the encore, where they sing the tourism board's favorite carol AGAIN.

Drives me nuts every damn time. I can never walk away from the show with Lo, How a Rose E're Blooming or even the Carol of the Bells in my head, no. I'm bound to come away with "Christmas in Chicago, is my kind of Christmas, it's like no other Christmas at all~" going over and over and over again.

Cheers to the Chicago Symphony and Chorus, nonetheless. Great performance.

(And Fry, you get a pass THIS time because you did a good arranging job on some other tracks. Next year, coal.)

Sweet Home, My Aunt's House

Ah, Chicago, my hometown... sort of. I was born in Oak Park, which is a quiet little suburb of Chicago. For all practical purposes, I'm a Chicago girl. That's not to say I can find my way from Randolph Street to Wrigley Field, mind you. I know the downtown only in particular bits and pieces.

Anyway, it's good to be back. As per the yuletide tradition, we've driven into town and are staying with my aunt in Oak Park. She's redecorated again -- it seems like every time we set foot in her place, the kitchen has been remodeled or the furniture has been rearranged and upholstered. I can't quite figure out what compels her to do it. A hobby, maybe? Expensive hobby, anyway. The house looks great, but it looked great before, and the time before that, and before that, too.

To go along with the remodeling this time, she even adopted a new dog. It's name is Monique. It is fat, it is friendly, and it has poo breath, making it the perfect companion to the other dog, Rosie, who is skinny, skittish, and smells like poo all over. (These are all compliments in the dog world, mind you.)

And, wouldn't you know it, I came up with the best plan for a mailbox doll on the way up here. All my nuigurumi supplies are back at home. Bah humbug.