Aftermath

It's over, we have the house back to ourselves. Quiet.

I feel mixed about having to pay J's rent this month on top of everything else we've tried to do for his family. I'm trying to remember that we're so lucky to be in a position to be able to help, and that we're doing the right thing, but I feel that we are going to end up having to do this regularly and often. There's no good answer. If you help, you're enabling - if you don't, you're letting a family member suffer.

I think what bothers me most is that I can hear my mother's voice in my head and I'm struggling not to say anything that she said when she was helping to support Nana and my sister. You make the right choices in life and your reward is that you get to carry the ones who didn't. These are adult people ~ why aren't they taking care of themselves? There's no free lunch in this world. I'll be so glad when I have no one suckling at my teets!! Her voice is loud inside my head and my reaction feels almost reflex, like I've been conditioned to resent something that I'm not even really sure I resent. Maybe I do resent it. Maybe I'm just like her. I don't believe in lending money; I believe in giving it. And I don't believe in holding those things over people to control them later. I've watched it and it's why I've never asked them for money for anything. I think it's quite likely that I'm not a very nice person. I seem to have picked up, against my will, the prejudices that I hated, in spite of recognizing them at a glance.

This has been my first Christmas away from my family, ever. And it was way harder than I thought it would be. I think having my mother-in-law ask me (about fourteen times) if I missed them made it harder.

I really don't like people very much. Not in large doses like that. Just a couple of hours here and there is enough. I'm becoming more neurotic the older I get.