Breakthroughs

Good morning everyone! I hope everyone had a great weekend and is loving that this is a short week:-) I know I am!

Right down to business...The Boy fell asleep the second we sat down on the plane, which gave Munchkin and I quite a while to chat. I suppose he could have been pretending to sleep because he knew I wanted to talk to her, but he has been NUTS with work lately, so I imagine that he was super tired.

I brought it up, pretty straightforward. This is, in fact, something that I am not ashamed to say that I have learned from her. It could be the best of her many admirable traits...a willingness and ability to discuss everything head-on, before it is allowed to fester and create bad feelings. So, I started very simply with "Hey, I want to talk about what you said last night about Mom being an alcoholic." I don't think she was specifically waiting for me to bring it up, but she was more than willing to talk.

First of all, the answer to the question of how she knows this really made me furious. She knows because my one of my whore-bag aunts told her last year. I have no idea what possessed her to do that, other than just basically being an evil bitch. Munchkin didn't really remember what context it came up in. I probably won't ask her...although it does seem like maybe a good reason to speak to her again after like three years of ignoring her...yell at her, drop a few C-bombs, and then go back to ignoring her...plan?

She had some pretty extensive thoughts about it beyond that. She said that she figured that this was a lot of the reason that our mother and I struggled to get along. She seems to be very aware that our Mom was a very different person with her than she was with me...and that, to me, is an extraordinarily complex idea for a 13 year old to have. She seems to have a pretty good grasp on some complex relationships without really affixing blame to one party or another. I am no psychiatrist, but that strikes me as some pretty advanced social thinking.

One thing that she said that I hadn't even thought about...she is definitely aware that our Mother's drinking played a part in her death. I don't know if our Aunt told her that, too, or if she just connected the dots...but she knows how our Mom died, and at this point she is smart enough and has had enough health education to know that liver and kidney failures are not independent of being a complete booze bag for 15 years.

All in all, it was a very productive discussion. I actually got kind of emotional over the whole thing, and I am not sure that I can really explain why. I think maybe it is a recognition that she has a little better idea of who I am, and that makes me feel good. She is a sister and sort of a daughter, but she is also one of my very best friends and I think this was a really important moment in our relationship. As time goes on, she will become much more of an equal and less of a little pipsqueak, and I think it is neat to sort of be able to mark those moments so clearly. I dunno...I guess I feel like I can say that I felt differently about our relationship when I got off the plane than I had when we got on it. And that's cool.

The rest of the weekend was a lot of fun. Munchkin spent most of it with her brother and his very pregnant wife. She is a super adorable pregnant girl...all belly! In fact, she has put on very little weight in her legs and arms and neck and face, but she has this giant baby belly! Super cute...and Munchkin is quite excited to become an Auntie:-)

So let's see...The Boy and I had breakfast on Saturday with an old friend. Lunch with Tinkerbelle and dinner with BFFg and her new boyfriend (that I set her up with:-)). We met up with BFFb and a couple of his friends...including Sam. I still get a little anxious before I see him, because things are unlikely to ever be relaxed and normal, but I do look forward to it, and I am glad to be speaking again.

Saw my Father's family for brunch on Sunday, which is always a treat. I got to see Tinkerbelle again and a whole bunch of our aunts and uncles and cousins and such. Then we picked up Munchkin and went to our (non Whore-Bag) aunt's house to see some of our Mom's family. That was nice, too...although it was hard to bite my tongue about the people that weren't there that I have some choice words for...

Got home without incident and back to the condo at about 8:00, just in time for some Chinese food and bed time:-)

I slept very soundly!