I need to cut myself some slack

[redbird]

This is my first day of real rest in a couple of weeks--which is less than I generally need to take. And my father's funeral was yesterday, a swarm of cousins I see every decade and friends and colleagues of my father's who I hadn't seen in longer than that. My father and I weren't close, to put it mildly, but that doesn't mean the day wasn't stressful (and no, nobody was expecting him to die this soon). I had four living grandparents until my senior year of high school; my mother is now my only surviving direct ancestor (I have three aunts).

So I'm eating lots of chocolate, doing not much else, and being vaguely distracted. And that's okay. If I don't pull myself together by 6:15 Monday morning, I have my job's okay to be out for a few days. (I won't get paid for them, which is a problem, but I won't be risking unemployment, either.)

Thanks to those of you who've offered condolences or an ear (those of you who are puzzled, this is because my last few posts were friends-only); particular thanks to papersky, who gave me a useful framework for thinking about the last couple of days and my reactions to them. And, as always, to cattitude, who is very good at just being there for me.

Comments

still mulling this over

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

" Plus society put expectations about parents which are ingrained into our cultural values and hence our being."

I've got an unformed train of thought here, that has to do with people insisting that one loves and respects and misses parents, regardless of the relationship. This may have to do with knowing too many abusive parents, and being the child of one. My mother, for example, tried to kill me twice, and for a while disowned me for my choice of husband/choice of any man over her -- people who say, "But of course you really love/d her and respected her" are trying to force me to lie to make themselves happy. (And, for the record, my feelings about her are mixed, and continue to be so.)

It's simply not true that everyone misses their parents after their deaths. And saying it over and over again doesn't make it any more true in the cases where it's false.

[ala-too.livejournal.com]

"It's simply not true that everyone misses their parents after their deaths. And saying it over and over again doesn't make it any more true in the cases where it's false."

I never said that. I said that one grieves one's parents. That's quite different from missing them (which may or may not be true). For example, you can grieve for what you didn't have as much as what you did have and miss.

Correction taken; nevertheless

[roadnotes.livejournal.com]

Not everyone grieves, either. Not even for potential relationships that never happened. And again, saying so doesn't make it universally true.