Sunday, March 22, 2015

Family


thouhastclothing over at Dalrock comments:


@BradA – Everyone says that it’s ok in the long run (ADBG: They are discussing divorce). Let’s look at the long run in my life (parents separated when I was 23): I dropped out of grad school with one year of work left to do, hitchiked around the middle east trying to get myself killed. Similarly in: Alaska, Norway, UK, and everywhere else in the world. I signed up to be ‘boots on the ground’ but missed my chance to go to ‘ganners. Ended up ‘settling’ 6,000miles from my family.
Note: these are all my fault and I accept full responsibility for my highly irresponsible actions.
One sister ended up in NZ. Every sibling has gotten a minimum of 1,000 miles away from home almost immediately after age 18. We still have a great family. Just not what it would have been. All the children are trying to make their lives away from the narcissism. Perhaps one day we’ll bring our son to see his family. God will have to continue to get ahold of me for that to be possible. His grace is always good so in that sense there are benefits.
“It’s good in the long run” – drinking gasoline might be a good way to lose weight but there are better ways to do it.
 Last weekend, my Wife and I celebrated my Father-In-Law's sixtieth birthday. We arrived at 10 in the morning to set up balloons, streamers, and party hats while FIL was gone. After that was set-up, we put 60 candles on the cake, a vanilla-chocolate swirl baked from my scratch in my kitchen by my Wife.

Four siblings live in the Chicagoland area, and attended in person. One lived in New York City: she sat on Skype for hours while the party continued. Everyone pitched in to cook dinner, and my Wife and I finally arrived home around 8 PM.

My Father-in-Law mentioned that he is looking to downsize in the next few years. He mentioned off-hand that he looked at some townhomes around my new home. My Mother-In-Law has mentioned numerous times that since she only works a day or two a week she can look after any Junior Betas, and would like to be close.

This weekend, my Brother-In-Law called, in a panic that he might not be able to pay for his car (currently on loan from his father). I told my Wife that we can lend him a small bit of money without problem: even after our down payment and closing costs, we have five months of expenses left in the bank (my Wife and I consider our attitude towards money conservative, although we have suckled the credit teat far more than I care to admit).

My Mother-In-Law called my Wife, tearfully insisting that she has the money to help, and we need not lend a single penny. Since my Wife is a....erm....sympathetic person, she teared up as well.

Today, I dropped by my parents briefly, and dropped off a check: I owed them quite a bit of money, because they fronted us the cash for our weeklong family vacation back in January. We stayed a few hours, talking about our new house, our closing date, and then playing with my young nephew. My mother made a beef roast with mashed potatoes and my Wife and I enjoyed some of it, before heading home.

This week is busy, but my 80+ year old grandmother-in-law is in town, and we'll visit her on Wednesday.

There isn't a day that goes by I do not speak to my family, and there is hardly a week that goes by without seeing them in person.

 Entirely by coincidence, neither my parents nor my In-Laws are divorced. 

No comments:

Post a Comment