year in review? not so much
Dec. 31st, 2025 09:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
liveonearthI've been going through my OUT OF CONTROL email and there are so many year in review emails coming from every direction....they share a theme of chaos and decline, which bums me out, but for the moment I'm indoors with hot coffee and doing all right. It's New Year's Eve and we have a LOT of humans coming over to the house, bringing food for the 6pm potluck and champagne for the 9pm "midnight" toast. That's right we're in the Pacific timezone but we celebrate at the same time as the east coasters, so that we can keep to our old-fart bedtime schedule of being asleep by 10:30pm. No point in driving around with all the drunks tonight!!
This morning I need to go run around and get a bit more champagne and some ice. Hope the potluck is potlucky enough. I tell people that I do "real" potlucks which is to say, if everybody brings chips and salsa, that's what's for dinner.
Lately I've been on the river a lot. We paddled down in the Eugene area on December 23, 24, 25. It was nice. No trees, no gifts, none of that consumerist celebration, instead just good food and laughs with friends. J & B are fast becoming really good friends and it is so nice.
I've had almost no contact with my family, just an occasional phone call to my mom or sis. They never call me. They're in Tennessee, and they don't get out much. My dad's in memory care and is doing OK. He cannot operate a phone anymore so we took it away and shut down the service. My mom is housebound in her hoard-laden home with my sister who is the more serious hoarder of the two. It's horrible to watch and I feel bad for my mother because she would benefit from having a social life, something to do other than watch TV, eat, sleep, eliminate, repeat. She is lonely. And sad. And dying soon, she thinks. She has really very little reason to live. My sister is depressed and unhealthy. I feel guilty. I want to save them but can't figure out how. I will be there in February, I hope she lives until then. I cannot take responsibility for the choices of my whole family, for the outcomes which are what they are. My own choices cost me enough. I wish that I'd had a more functional/less dysfunctional family but we are what we are. I wish that we humans had more free will than we do.
Willard is gone over to Joe's house to help him tarp something. Then to Powell Butte to go for a hike with his son. It's my chance to get some stuff done around the house...though I do wait for the tenant downstairs to be awake before I start making noise. Her bedroom is directly under my office, so I am in the livingroom as I type this.
This morning I need to go run around and get a bit more champagne and some ice. Hope the potluck is potlucky enough. I tell people that I do "real" potlucks which is to say, if everybody brings chips and salsa, that's what's for dinner.
Lately I've been on the river a lot. We paddled down in the Eugene area on December 23, 24, 25. It was nice. No trees, no gifts, none of that consumerist celebration, instead just good food and laughs with friends. J & B are fast becoming really good friends and it is so nice.
I've had almost no contact with my family, just an occasional phone call to my mom or sis. They never call me. They're in Tennessee, and they don't get out much. My dad's in memory care and is doing OK. He cannot operate a phone anymore so we took it away and shut down the service. My mom is housebound in her hoard-laden home with my sister who is the more serious hoarder of the two. It's horrible to watch and I feel bad for my mother because she would benefit from having a social life, something to do other than watch TV, eat, sleep, eliminate, repeat. She is lonely. And sad. And dying soon, she thinks. She has really very little reason to live. My sister is depressed and unhealthy. I feel guilty. I want to save them but can't figure out how. I will be there in February, I hope she lives until then. I cannot take responsibility for the choices of my whole family, for the outcomes which are what they are. My own choices cost me enough. I wish that I'd had a more functional/less dysfunctional family but we are what we are. I wish that we humans had more free will than we do.
Willard is gone over to Joe's house to help him tarp something. Then to Powell Butte to go for a hike with his son. It's my chance to get some stuff done around the house...though I do wait for the tenant downstairs to be awake before I start making noise. Her bedroom is directly under my office, so I am in the livingroom as I type this.
