RIP My Cousin The Nun

I discovered on July 5th while doing my occasional search online for obits I finally found hers, which had not popped up in any of my previous searches this year. 

Coincidentally, I was in New Jersey running errands and made a point to stop off at one of the two Thai restaurants my cousin and I would frequent, and the food was even better than I remembered it from 27 years ago. Sadly, it sis not even occur to me to try reaching out to her yet again. Regardless of the reasons why she never re-established contact, it always felt like a rejection to me. 

She passed away in March, on my mom’s birthday in fact, and I discovered the obit on July 6th. I can only deduce the obit appeared recently as her funeral was on July 2nd. 

Despite my best efforts at trying to maintain contact with her, she either did not want to or was unable to do so, as she suffered some level of memory loss after a truck hit her as she opened her car door. 

I analyze things too much. She was capable of driving to my dad’s funeral in 2008. 

When mom died in 2020, I sent a letter as her phone was turned off or changed and emails to her bounced. She also was able to maintain an Etsy shop, selling semiprecious stones from her collection. And yet she couldn’t manage keeping in touch with me or any of our cousins. 

My skepticism is a byproduct of my own traumas I experienced long before living with her. I know I thought unkind things, but the sort of unkind things only siblings understand. 

As I get older, I am realizing multiple things can exist simultaneously, and sadly I was not raised with any conflict resolution skills. My only skill has been to run away and avoid things that are too painful or too complicated for me to make sense.

Regardless of the reasons why she chose to isolate herself from the rest of the extended family, some of whom, like myself, who would have attended her funeral, I have to respect her choice; however, it is sad to think that she died alone. 

Having a room of my own, as challenging as it was, was something I will appreciate forever. It was either that, or I live in my car. Despite my best efforts to be as unobtrusive as possible, I am sure just my presence in her house was difficult for her & her solitude. 

In hindsight, however I felt at the time at how we left things when she sold her home and I moved out, she was my maid of honor when I married again in 2001, which she relished by showing up in her shabby nun’s habit and our wedding ceremony started with her clanging on a Tibetan singing bowl and reciting a native American wedding prayer for us.

In that moment, I know she was happy for us, and who knows? Perhaps she was happy to be a maid of honor. 

Similar to my mom, she was a challenging person to love. Similar to my mom, my cousin’s relationship with her father was emotionally damaging, not unlike my relationship with my mom, or like mom’s relationship with her own father. 

I don’t recall if my cousin told me or if it was one of my mom’s stories (of dubious veracity) her dad didn’t want her or any kids, which was not dissimilar to my early developmental years, mom reminded my siblings and I how she hated us and never wanted us. My cousin and I both carried the knowledge & the trauma all our life. 

So, I can quit searching for her obit. I can stop yearning to re-establish contact with her. I know where she is now, and after 77 years, mostly of struggle and loss, she is finally at rest & in the hands of her guardian angel. 

The Limberger Incident

 “The Limberger Incident”

This is one of those crazy life stories, which happened during what was my first transitional year when I left my ex and lived with my mom’s first cousin, who was also a nun.

Behold! The Limberger Incident:

“Cleanliness is next to Godliness” apparently did not apply to my cousin, whether it be her house, her FIVE cats, her car, or more specifically for this thread, HER BODY.

Living with her had its own challenges, namely the filth, the hoard, and her borderline antisocial behavior, and my discovery that I was allergic to cats. 

She made an agreement with my mom that I’d pay rent for my room, and i paid the entire bill for internet, and I found out after I moved in, indentured servitude was involved, cleaning the house the bathrooms were riddled with black mold, and cleaning the TWO litter boxes she had for FIVE CATS. 

Mostly, I just tried to avoid her as much as possible, as she’d vacillate from antisocial to something that appeared as an attempt at friendliness.  

The only way to truly know someone is to live with them. At the time i could not articulate how I felt living there; however, now it is 27 years later, I can say I felt like an interloper. She had crafted a narrative at her church that she was an orphan without any family who cared about her. And I suspect my presence in her home was proof to the contrary. 

She even went so far as to not let me know the date and time of her ordination ceremony. And the weekend of the ceremony when she realized I was not leaving to visit my parents for the holiday and my cousin realized she could not have her guest, a stranger, sleep in my bed, she grew hostile towards me and told me to stay to myself that weekend. 

I contacted her church to find out the date and time, and I attended the ceremony. Turns out, some cousins on her dad’s side of the family did the same. We all somehow found each other at the reception, and we all  remarked how her church family thought none of her genetic family existed. 

There were sublime moments living with her, but they were not a daily occurrence—namely our explorations of Thai restaurants that opened in our community and a neighboring town. She’d blurt out “want to Thai one on?” and off we went for dinner. 

For the most part, we got ourselves into a system, a habit. I’d come home from work and immediately take a nap (from 6 p.m. ‘til about 10 p.m., when she’d go to bed). I set my alarm and would get up when she was already ensconced in bed with her CPAP humming along. One night in particular is seared into my memory, and the memories of friends of whom I told this story to over the years.

On this night in particular, I got up, splashed some water on my face and dried off with her cute little fingertip towel (the fancy velour one with the angel aplique which she kept by the sink & I thought was a special towel “for company”) and wandered to the den to pop online.

I became overwhelmed by a most-unpleasant “aroma.” Fetid. Cheesy. Quite possibly *CONTAGIOUS.*

I sniffed my pits, and whafted air up from my crotchal region, taking a stink assessment, both of which came up with negative results on my parts.

I got up, and as much as it pains me to recall this, I dared to sniff the upholstery of the chair, thinking perhaps I was sitting in her filth. No dice.

The smell surrounded me like a bad Lynyrd Skynyrd song.

WHEREVER. I. MOVED. IT. WAS. ALWAYS. THERE….

So I retraced my steps from whence I woke up. I found myself back in the bathroom. 

At this point, I was very afraid and reluctant to pick up the fingertip towel (which for all intents and purposes APPEARED  CLEAN).

Reluctantly… hesitatingly… dry-heaving-ly, I put the towel up within sniffing range… and FUCK-ME-RUNNING-WITH-A-RED-HOT-POGO-STICK-THERE-IT-WAS!~

I can only conclude that my cousin used this cloth to either dry her vajoosh or perhaps take a swipe at the yeasty underfolds of her belly--OR BOTH. 

OH-YES-THERE-WAS-MUCH-PROJECTILE-VOMITING.

Here endeth the first story of my cousin. 

Day 32: Quick & Radical & Necessary

Very long boring story short—I made the quick & radical decision to retire early. Between mom dying 4 years ago and all the unresolved grief, and continuing to work in a toxic work environment which kept me highly emotionally activated and stressed out in a negative feedback loop, I did what was necessary for my mental and physical well being, and extricated myself, and retired. I did not feel psychologically or physically safe in that workplace, and I could not see myself suffering along for another six years until I reach age 62. 

Today is day 32 since my last day in the office, and besides a few moments of doubt, wondering if I did the right thing, it has been a solid gold decision. 

My husband says he thinks I am 90% less anxious and 50% less grumpy. And I have seen changes in how I respond to questions (such as “how are you?”which previously would have vexed me. 

I have also noticed I am not catastrophizing as much/if at all. 

I will take my victories where I am able. My trauma therapist, my psychiatric nurse practitioner (and myself!) all see this as an enormous improvement. For the first time in a very long time, I am seeing improvement, and I am daring to hope that moving forward things will be transformative. 

"I hope this happens to you"

So today's her birthday. She would have been 79 today. Right on time, this morning her sister sent me a text with nothing but a heart emoji in it. That's what my relationship with her has been reduced to: no actual communication, no substance, just emojis. 

Not to be out or underdone by my aunt, my siblings don't reach out to me on the birth and death anniversaries of our parents. I don't know why, but I suspect it might be because our parents did nothing outwardly to memorialize our grandparents on their birth and death days. The last time I recall going to one of our family cemetery plots was in the mid-1990s with dad. We planted some daffodils and tidied up the grave and snapped photos. And then, that was it. No more trips to the cemetery. My family moved to the shore in the mid-1970s, and it was well over an hour or so to get to the cemetery, and as my folks got older and life got in the way, the cemetery trips became less and less.

As I've blogged elsewhere, among the cruel things mom said to me over the course of my life was "I hope this happens to you" as she was struggling to climb the 15 stairs to get into my condo to attend my housewarming party 22 years ago--the solitary time she ever came to my home. Mind you, blogging about it loses all tone of voice and facial countenance, just envision Livia Soprano saying it along the lines of her quotable quote, "Oh poor you!"  

If I thought there were any therapeutic value in doing so, I'd inventory every hateful word she said. Sure as shit, there was an abundance of words than loving words--so much so, when mom did say something remotely loving, the words would go in one ear and out the other, and roll away like water rolling off a duck's ass, because why would I believe anything loving, when the bulk of what she used to say was so hateful. When you're programmed that way, no matter how much loving shit she'd pour out would just drain right through the emotional cups she provided us, cups with holes in them, ensuring that the cups would never be full, and we'd never be contented. But this is the legacy she left me with, a raging case of C-PTSD.

Lately, I have been on a quest of sorts to find someone to lift the curse (or curses) with which mom cursed me. Though I haven't found someone to do the traditional Italian ritual to lift the malocchio, my therapist highly recommended an energy healer out on Long Island, and my appointment is set for 3/28/24, and who knows, perhaps she'll have the key to unlock this trap I have been stuck in for so long.

I am not sure what I hope to evolve from the meeting with the healer. I need to focus my intent for that appointment. Right now, I am hoping to achieve some nebulous goal of the healer unblocking whatever it is that has me stuck in this cycle of suffering and grief and everything that is triggering my C-PTSD symptoms. 

Mom has been dead four years now, and I want her emotionally destructive programming expunged from my psyche so I can move forward with my life. She died at age 75 never attempting to extricate herself from the abusive trap her own parents set for her. I don't want that to be part of my journey anymore. And it's very hard work to try to fight against the learned helplessness she (and dad) ingrained in me, the "why should I bother trying, nothing works."

I made so much progress in 10-15 years before COVID, and in one fell swoop, like a tsunami, the pandemic, mom dying, my friend Susan dying, the constant state of stress from assessing my risks for EVERYTHING--it wiped out the life I had.  

I am tired of many things. I am tired carrying around this sadness and loneliness and feeling that I am worthless and a failure, all ideas or concepts planted by and designed by my mother--that I'll never be enough. I am tired of just existing or surviving; I want to resume THRIVING.

I have come to the conclusion that the purpose for my suffering is to possibly help others NOT to suffer as much. In this moment, I'm trying to help myself. It's a process. I vacillate between working hard and then allowing myself moments to just BE and coalesce before resuming more work, and just keep TRYING. Trying and failing beats the alternative of doing nothing. Sure, there's misery AND I guess comfort in doing nothing; and there's misery in trying and failing. But the hope with the trying is, I'm trying so many things, eventually I'll stumble upon the key to unlock all of this. Rather than fixating on the end result, I'll just try to focus on doing my due diligence, doing my work and abandoning attachment to the results, because if the results don't come, then I suffer more. Just do the work. Do my duty to myself.

Bye Bye YentaBeast

End of an era. And I am a hateful enough of a person to wonder why it didn't happen sooner, perhaps 20 years ago, but the YentaBeast, the wife or exwife or whatever she was to my brother, she passed away yesterday.

Though her passing at age 49 was not a surprise, the cause of death was the surprise. She died of cancer; however, she suffered from neurofibromatosis all her life, and trust me when I say that the physical manifestation of those fibromas were the least unattractive thing about her. 

She just was an awful contrary person to be around, and so much so, it made me cut back on attending more family gatherings when dad was alive--and after dad died, I cut back even more. I missed out on a lot of experiences because of her, and of course, because of my lack of conflict resolution skills to navigate that mess. The solitary nice thing I can say about her is that she made a delicious noodle kugel.

I struggle to find anything nice to say about her, she truly was a challenging person to be around. She and my brother communicated by bickering every chance they got. She ruined most family gatherings. And most family gatherings were punctuated by mom having a trip to the ER the day after due to cardiac issues brought on by undue stress. 

She'd grouse about every damned thing, and she'd try to find ways to attempt to extract money from us, then acted like we all were beneath her. But whatever, she's dead now, and the damage is done. She was just as bad as my mom, doing the "divide and conquer" routine, just as mom did to us regarding dad's family.

My niece informed my brother (her father) he was not welcome at the funeral, so by extension, none of us were welcome. My niece is now 18 and can do as she wishes, and I suspect she'll trot off to Florida to be close to her maternal grandmother and just forget about the rest of us. As my dad used to say, "Don't go away mad--JUST GO AWAY."

It's just as well. And while I don't know the intimate details of what it was like to live in a house with my brother and her mother, I can imagine it was similar to my own upbringing, and I can understand, probably better than others, her need to insulate and protect herself. And part of me is relieved YentaBeast is gone. One less person to attempt to make a claim on my estate when I die. 

In all likelihood I would not have attended the funeral; however, if I were to have attended it would have been for my own selfish reason: to ensure that she was, in fact, dead, and unable to hurt her daughter and my brother any further.

And so it goes

 After four years of grieving mom dying of covid & being in a constant state of chaos being triggered and overstimmed and overwhelmed by everything, after four years of diligence and sacrificing personal experiences, I caught COVID. 

How this came to be is a combination of conditions:

1. My boss insisting I attend a mandatory meeting with 30 people in an enclosed conference room for 4 hours—when I have been avoiding crowds for sustained periods of time and have medical documentation justifying my working remotely 2 days a week.

2. My inability to advocate for myself by pushing back regarding this because of the fact my boss has only perpetuated this dynamic wherein I feel and believe I am a problem, and by pushing back it would have only contributed more to this dynamic. 

3. A half century of both, a fear of failure and people pleasing as a byproduct of my C-PTSD, which was brought on by decades of narcissistic abuse from mom. I was unable to make my mother happy, and by extension, I’ll never make my boss happy. 

It is convenient for me to blame my mom, and have a white hot hate-on for my boss, for this. I lack sufficient conflict resolution skills necessary for me to navigate challenging situations like this. Convenient & a reasonable conclusion; however, I am weary and fucking bored of this trope, blaming mom, and of course suffering because I feel disempowered to advocate for myself.

I caught covid a month after being diagnosed with a DVT in my leg, so I was already distracted and overwhelmed before the situation regarding the mandatory meeting presented itself. 

In the 88 days since my DVT diagnosis and 40 days since testing positive for covid, not once has my boss nor my office manager bothered to ask me how I am doing. In fact, when others are brave enough to inquire, my office manager tone polices me when I dare to respond. 

The ultimate conclusion I have come to is neither my boss nor office manager gives a shit about my health, well being, or comfort—just as mom didn’t give a shit. 

Each day I manage to drag myself to the office, it is as if I were trying to work up an appetite to feast on rotten meat. And unlike all those years of family gatherings I avoided, I cannot avoid work. I need my job and its medical insurance which sadly I need more and more with each passing day. 

I have been unhappy since roughly day 45 of my initial 90 day probationary period, and I’ve attempted to extricate myself from this trap of misery by interviewing for jobs elsewhere, to no avail. 

I have tried to change my perspective to muster the fortitude to keep at it, and I have yet to make my peace with it. So, it is imperative I change my paradigm, and try yet again to find a new job. 

Just as I felt as if I never fit in, in my family, in school, in church, always an outsider looking in—I don’t fit in at my job, and I am tired of being a square peg being judged harshly that I am a fish who is being judged harshly for my inability to climb a tree. 

A Microscopic Shift

As I’ve said before, acceptance & forgiveness are not love languages I was taught growing up, and as a consequence, I struggle with as an adult. 

Recently, I changed one of my hundreds of passwords to involve the word “forgive” in some form or another, so every day, whether I want to or not, I have to type that word, repeatedly, hoping to elicit some benefit from doing so. 

Additionally, 2 weeks ago I broke down and called that co-worker who, for 17 years I thought was a friend, and who retired 3 years ago. I had been giving her nothing but radio silence in all this time—and she has done the same towards me. 

Anyway, I guess I was chasing some kind of dopamine hit by doing so, and she delivered by fawning excessively. Not sure why I did it, as this person showed their true nature by being carelessly cruel to me after I suffered an injury 4 years ago—an injury which still has me hobbled to this day. 

Perhaps I was “bread crumbing” her. I don’t know why else. Maybe I am lonely & craving interaction of any sort. The bar is set pretty damned low if that weee the case, but I guess this is better than calling random strangers just to chit chat. 

Anyway. My customary response as I am walking is to blurt out “Fuck you Nizuc!” (the resort where I suffered my injury), and “Fyck you Brenda!” (the name of the person who was carelessly cruel me. I don’t recall how many weeks it has been (1? 2?) since the password change, but I noticed yesterday when the script automatically started running yesterday, I managed just to blurt our “Fuck you Nizuc!”

Looks like progress to me.