my mom is mad at me

I talked to my mom yesterday. She was at home and there was a party for my stepdad's son's kid - her stepgrandchild if you will. I'm not quite sure what happened but I think she feels a bit alienated from his family. She told him she didn't want to participate in the party because his family isn't her family - she'd set it up and clean up - but to her, because this isn't her family, why bother? Of course this hurt her husband quite a bit. He said, "How would you like it if I did this to Heather?" She answered, "Heather isn't having kids."

I told her that wasn't his point.

It was her point, though. She's clearly angry that she'll never prepare for my child's birthday party, christmas, etc. I think she's taking it out on her husband. I know that the dynamic in the house is more complicated than this and I know she feels made-fun-of and outnumbered. I told her, however, that I couldn't take her side on this one. She hung up on me.

This was all, of course, exacerbated by drinking. When I called Chris after the fight, his first question was, "Is she on the sauce?" The sauce causes much bad behavior at the Cadden residence. It has also caused much bad behavior at many Hax functions as well. As a result, I don't find drunken debauchery interesting or fun in the least. In my 20s, the weird shame/guilt thing I felt after a night of drinking was tolerable. In my 30s, not so much. I am also weirdly turned off by drunk people. I know it's a side effect of being surrounded by drunk family members, boyfriends, and friends who aren't accountable for their behavior while wasted. I am "forgiving" but I don't find it quaint.

People read this as such: Heather is a boring, judgmental stick in the mud. She goes to bed at 10 pm and only "has fun" on occasion. But what people find fun, to me, is kind of stupid. This *does* sound so fucking judgmental, I know. Yet, how is it that subtly making fun of me for going to bed early and preferring to do yoga to blow off steam rather than get wasted not a form of judgment? In fact, it really pisses me off. And if you know my family, if you know my friends, if you know my city, you know what booze does. You know what addiction does. You know what it has done.

I can't really discern why it is that I escaped. My sister has been a heroin addict for 15 years. My father is almost certainly drunk - really drunk - by 7 pm. My mother can sometimes turn it off but struggles with consumption-as-escape.

A long time ago, in the "myspace" days of blogging, I wrote something about possibility. I was reading all of these books about beauty and hope and I was feeling so inspired but also feeling a tremendous gap. Where is this life? Where are these people? What is this community I so long for? One of my exes commented, "Stop reading about it and live it!" He was right in noting that I had all but sunk into myself (see earlier blog about anorexia and going batty). At the same time, this was a reaction to the form of liberation available in Baltimore at the time - watching other people create stuff and later watching them get wasted. This isn't true anymore and there are communities of people doing really interesting things that don't involve the drunkenness I am describing. This is why I long to go home so badly.

Nevertheless, for many, drinking still the predominant recipe for blowing off steam. Just like having one's own kids is still the predominant recipe for living a full life. And because I don't fully embrace either as my path, I tend to feel pretty alienated. Less so than before, but it's still there. It bubbles up in the moments of anger from my mother and when I don't go out for beers after a long day. There's a shunning that happens and it's kind of lonely.