No one I know, just a pic of my sentiments
This latest visit has been no exception. The third annual summer rental car trip, scheduled pretty much identically to last year's, with the first stop being Allentown to see the brother who is two years older than I, his wife, and my parents, who live in an apartment my brother built out of the bottom floor of his house. My brother turns 60 in a couple weeks, my parents celebrate their 66th wedding anniversary, and they are 87 (father) and 86 (mother).
Aspects that were difficult for me:
The normal lifestyle, with its stable domesticity, pattern, routine, calm and composure but without much passion for anything. Living death is what it feels like to me.
The infirm and frail constitution of both parents and to some degree my brother, with a constant sense of their physical limitations and suffering, the gradually but surely constricting necessities of their lives.
My own inner turmoil, broken-hearted, lonely, ungrounded, feeling somewhat out of recovery, restless about the PhD and really wanting to just be the fuck alone or with people who get me.
I am still largely unable to exercise much due to the eye situation, at least not the 5 km run I was putting in several times a week, and I'm really feeling the pent up bollix of imbalance as a result. Also, my family doesn't really eat the best food, so there's always a kind of dietary lag, carb crashes, mood swings, etc.
Allentown and the Lehigh Valley in general, of course deeply evocative of my childhood and young adulthood, and usually not in a favorable way. PTSD responds to all of the memories and cues, including just the smell in the air, or fireflies, or the behavior of Pennsylvanians. Restless nights in hotels. Little sense of calm or space.
Anyway, that's a partial list. First and foremost, my parents' condition was painful for me to witness, in an attached way. My father is hardly able to stand and walk on his own. He's extremely unsteady on his feet and has taken several falls lately. He also has trouble hearing, and his hearing aids don't work very well, so he's just sinking more and more into solitude, even with people around, and that really pushed my buttons. My mother is better physically, but very frail also. Her biggest challenges are emotional. I can tell she is deeply unhappy and quite anxious and worried all of the time. She puts on a chipper front, but I can feel her loneliness, worry, anxiety about her future, about health, about my father, about her living situation. Both of them are in a stubborn place where they just seem not ready to accept the true nature of their condition.
Their main source of support is my sister in law, and they do not get along with her. There is almost constant tension as a result. My sister in law is direct and not given to a lot of niceties, and my parents have always been extremely sensitive and proud people who will not be told what to do. They were used to a high degree of autonomy before they moved into my brother and sister in law's house, and as their infirmities have increased they have been increasingly dependent there. It's a tense situation sometimes.
Up here at my sister's, in a beautiful segment of Sullivan County NY near the Delaware River, I have a lot more time to myself. My sister is still recovering from extensive treatment for cancer of the larynx, which resulted in her losing 80 pounds. She is in remission, but she doesn't yet seem well. She seems querulous, easily irritated, anxious to a high degree and terribly unhappy. One of her habits is to make everything incredibly complicated, and I try to put her at ease and assure her that I need and want absolutely nothing, but she always goes to great lengths as a host and gets worked up about dinner plans and so on. I sometimes just go out and pick up dinner without even telling her or her husband and then just message her "hey, I got dinner!", and that has gone over okay a couple times. But it also has angered her, as she prepares a lot of food without talking about it as well. It's a weird energy for sure- at the grocery store today, I wanted to buy all of my own things and she insisted on paying. In itself of course that's fine, but she seemed irritated by how high the bill was when we checked out. This is an old and reliable pattern in my family of a kind of constrained generosity that leads to peevishness, but that one cannot refuse. Very confusing mixed signals.
After four days of these kinds of strange and shadowy and unpredictable interactions, I sank a lot this morning and simply collapsed in bed and slept for a couple hours, and woke up feeling awful. All of it in combination with the Fourth of July was horrifying, really. The holiday itself felt like a morbid joke, and Facebook was a reassuring source of humor but also a contributor to increased frustration and outrage. The country and everyone in it and especially my family all seem insane. I'm sure I seem insane to them as well.
Fortunately up here at my sister's there is a lot of alone time, and the surroundings are incredible. I stay in the apartment they have built out over what was an old barn, separate from their house. The place is right on the edge of national forest, along a river, not far from the much larger Delaware River, with endless woods and solitude. There's a couple of spectacular hikes along a running river and some waterfalls, etc. The deck looks right out on the small river behind her house. They work all day so we really only interact in the morning and evening. They go to bed very early, so I always get some alone time at night as well. My brother in law runs hos own very successful HVAC business and he basically works 12 hour days, 7 days a week in the summer. We basically get along well, yet I always feel like an imposition when I am here. That may well be my own stuff. I have rarely felt comfortable as a guest.
The last family effort on this year's trip will be a big reunion in New Jersey of my three nephews, two nieces, their various partners, their children, and my oldest brother. Two of the nephews and one niece are my oldest brother's kids, and the other niece is the brother in Allentown's daughter. My great niece and great nephew will be there also, which is always fun- I think they are both five years old. My oldest brother, age 64, had a stroke a couple years ago and lost his short term memory and is fairly severely disabled, and visiting with him can be challenging, but is definitely easier when there are many other people around.
In general, I absolutely do not want to age the way the rest of my family has. I realize one can't always choose in these matters, as with my detached retina and prostate cancer, but to whatever degree it is up to me, I am committed to make choices that increase the odds of the way I want to be. The top aspects include mobile, flexible, mentally alert, resilient, adventurous, in as good health as possible, open to new things and not living out of fear. I have already made many changes in diet, mental health care, recovery and exercise and so on that make this more likely, but every time I visit here I get it even more powerfully. Watching the precipitous physical, emotional and mental deterioration of my siblings who are not much older than I am is very jarring. I understand the state of my 80 something parents, although I do not see it as necessary by any means and know some people in their 80's who are spry and active. But the alarming infirmities in siblings who range from two years to six years older than I is very difficult for me to witness.
After the family jam on Sunday in New Jersey, I visit with one of my most long term friends, Beau. I think we've been friends for 37 years. And we have so much in common, we might as well be brothers. I feel a greater kinship with him than I do with my own siblings, as a matter of fact.
After that, I head west. Back toward "home," although I have no place to live. I still am not entirely sure what is going to happen. I am really looking forward to more open ended, alone travel time. I brought my car camping gear and I have plenty of DEET so dark wet woods, here I come. The darker and wetter the better. I am still not sure where. I don't have to plan as carefully there because there is no agenda. And I don't return the car until July 26, after which I immediately go to Tucson for the Botanical Society of America's annual meeting.
Gathering compassion and detachment. Compassion that arises naturally from detachment. The equanimity meditation presents itself- "all beings are responsible for their own actions. Suffering, or happiness, is created by one's relationship to experience, not by experience itself. The freedom and happiness of others is dependent on their actions, not on my wishes for them." Time to meditate.
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