Last month, I attempted a day out with my step-nieces and nephews with the added buffer of my mother and stepfather. We went to a restaurant the children like and the adults tolerated. I thought it would be nice for the children and, frankly, I just wanted to be around children again.
While there, I reserved a date to do it again in November. I thought that in addition to lunch, I would look into whether there might be something fun to take the kids to do around the restaurant. I thought when the day got closer I would google it and get some input from my mother.
The saved date was one on which my mother and stepfather would be available again. In fact, my mother picked the restaurant. She said she would check the date with my step sister and then get back to me.
My mother checked with Robin and then said we were good to go. My stepsister would be working that day. My mother said they would coordinate picking up the kids. The closer to the end of the year it gets, the longer my hours are at work so it will be nice to take a break and see my mother and stepfather.
I hadn’t thought much about the upcoming trip until I got a bizarre series of texts from my stepsister. Here are a couple of things you should know for context.
First, I didn’t grow up with my stepsister. I did see her some weekends while I was a teenager but, like most teenagers, I spent as much time doing social and school activities as I could convince my parents to drive me to. She didn’t attend my wedding or the baby shower for Constance that my mother had organized on my behalf for family in Indiana. All that is to say that we don’t have the closeness that allows us to predict the other’s feelings about things and so often try to go out of our way to avoid stepping on each other’s toes.
The second bit of context is that like many people who have full-time jobs and busy lives, we communicate via text when not face to face. I am long-winded, so it is easier for anyone who doesn’t have a day to kill to text me just as it is easier for me to text them. I am somehow incapable of getting off the phone. It is not uncommon for me to spend hours on the phone and yet provide no real information. This should probably be something else I work on.
The final bit of context is that I only go on Facebook when I have something I need to post—that happens a handful of times a year. I don’t read my Facebook messages or see other people’s posts. I have 5,000 friends on Facebook and, I assure you, they are not all my friends. Before Constance passed, I used Facebook exclusively to post a few work things a year. Since then, I’ve posted a handful of things about Constance. That’s it. I’m not “on Facebook” recreationally.
This is all far more awkwardness that I care to experience. I shan’t repeat it. I am filing this entire misadventure under ‘bad ideas.’ I am putting it next to the time I cut myself those bangs Constance hated and commenting on any piece of news, no matter how apolitical and reasonable I think my viewpoints are.
Day 239 is at https://www.wantmybabyback.com/blog/day-239.