I don’t know how I’d forgotten this fact; perhaps too many years spent among boyfriends, girlfriends and my adopted family of friends after having dodged my own childhood hell of mean, drunk, and childish relatives, I’d become soft and complacent during the interim two decades.

When it was recently our turn to take part in what is supposed to be one of the “last” traveling Christmas weekends of a classic abuser who happens to be my hubby’s grandmother. Her main target is my mother-in-law, a beleaguered caregiver at the end of her rope. The rest, which mostly included home caregivers, her billionaire daughter-in-law (out of her son’s earshot) and niece has recently branched out to include her son (a self-made man) for not building her an elevator, and even newer, me. My own fresh, personal hell comes by the way of supposedly not being “thankful” enough for the hand-me-down dress and coat and assistance with the downpayment on a condo for my new spouse and I (which was gramma’s way of making up for forgetting she was gonna help him with his student loans).

Here’s the thing about me: having worked my hardest and on my own for much of my life, I have often been accused of being TOO thankful, as in so much so that my tributes can make others uncomfortable. To the end concerning my supposed infraction of not saying thanks for anything and everything, I tried sweet, empathetic understanding as well as exact dates before giving up, thanking her for the terminally awkward moment she’d just offered me, and left just as her son – who she’d been upset with previously over nothing – arrived.

After some pressure from well-meaning relatives to go to the dinner I’d planned on skipping out of horror and fear for what might come next, it was assured there would be distance between myself and the proclaimed Queen of Mississippi. Instead, I arrived to find that this was not true, and that instead the only ope seats were directly next to and across from her. When the relatives tried bumbling musical chairs to make up for the mistake, I elected to just SIT DOWN and save us all even more embarrassment.

Here’s what happened: she apologized (apparently a first, an anomaly according to everyone else in the family) and went on to mention that she might be allergic to steroids, a fact she thanked me for mentioning months ago to her own daughter when she had first noticed her mom’s exacerbated mood swings.

Hmm. More on this steroid subject will be part of my next entry; I’ve actually got quite a volatile essay on my Kenalog experience.

Back to granny for a moment: I know she’s never worked hard for the $ she gave my spouse for our condo. Her son invested $ that his father worked hard for. She threatened to spend that gift of 50k on herself, and I had dared her to. “Please!” I pleaded, “live your life – this gift of love – to its fullest! Any less would be a sin!” “Well I just might!” “Even better,” I egged on, “spend double!”

Anyway, it seems to be a case of “mo money = mo problems”, in that, while everyone seems thankful for what they have, it’s a constant and simultaneous loyalty check and poke to the eye I’m grateful to witness as an adult but am happy to have missed out on as a child with a humble background; we had all kinds of real reasons to flip our wigs, money and whether there was enough being a constant threat. On the other side, once you have more than you can spend, keeping it that way seems to take precedence over most other activities.

May balance, love, light, abundance and positive challenges guide you, and when all else fails, don’t be afraid to crank “Jesus of Suburbia” or “Beverly Hills: Where I Wanna Be” while dragging the hose hundreds of feet to all your baby trees.

I love this country, no matter how much I have to fight or how many inequities exist. At least I’m in a world where I can WORK to rise above in one way or another.

Not thankful? Moi? Pshaw, I say, pshaw.

I don’t know how I’d forgotten this fact; perhaps after too many years spent among boyfriends, girlfriends and my adopted family of friends, I’d forgotten all about the abuse one can almost always find nowhere except for at the hands of a relative (either through blood or marriage) in a home the victim typically doesn’t frequent but a few times a year or, like newlywed me, for the first time ever. Whichever the case, some things we can all share in are maximum embarrassment in a foreign sphere, a choking down of hypocrisy, and lastly, a strange and latent masochistic desire to keep engaging the perp, for better or for worse.

My own fall from grace came from a scenario I lost with my partner, who very much wanted me to attend what (apparently, though at this point I seriously doubt it, at least if the feistiness of said relative is any indicator at all) is supposed to be his elderly relative’s “last Christmas” up at the farm/compound, one of those majestic and beautiful places seemingly sprung from the heavens specifically to engender these kinds of situations. Mo money = mo problems, indeed.

For whatever reason, the relative, an elderly woman whose very presence flies in the face of the reason we “honor our mothers and fathers”, seems to enjoy making herself out to be a victim of everything in the world despite having been handed a husband, a teaching job, and several million dollars with which to grow and play with. Apparently all of this isn’t good enough, and I suppose that if I refused to read a book or a newspaper or make friends or if I insisted on going nowhere or doing anything with the money left me except complain that I COULD do something if I wanted to, as no one I’ve helped is even remotely thankful (despite all of the thanks and praise, which somehow disintegrates into the ether before ever reaching her impoverished ears or eyes)…

…Sigh…at any rate, I’m being reminded this week of exactly why I have spent my last nearly 20 years of my adult life carefully cultivating my holiday crowd to the point of self-loving isolation: it’s all about Releasing My Soul From the Crazy. It is a worthy cause for those in the know.

Later: Let’s Get Specific-al…!