in which it is revealed that fox, too, has Issues

[fox]

i love my parents. really. really, i do; i'm among the only adults i know who has a good solid healthy relationship with both parents (with, in fact, all family members i know by name). but lately -- on this visit, in fact, which has been in effect since friday evening -- i'm realizing that i like going home to visit them a lot better than i like when they come to visit me. and this evening it hit me (some time between when i realized my mother was something like disappointed and when i found myself unable not to weep just a little at the dinner table) why that is:

i hate feeling like i can't do things by myself.

this is not to say that i actually can't do things by myself. i can't do it all by myself, but who amongst us can; however, my mother came down to help me pack up my old place; my brother and FSIL came down to help me move, along with several of my friends (who didn't have to come from six states away to do it); and my parents are here to, besides visit me, help me get settled in. along with, i still don't have a job, so until someone hires me i'm funded almost entirely by the Bank of Mom and Dad.

and it turns out my mother was really counting on, by the end of the weekend, the three of us having unpacked and put away and hung up and etc. everything in the new place. and the idea that i'd rather get stuff done that i really can't do alone -- hanging stuff that has to be level, but which requires power tools, for instance; i only have two hands -- and maybe handle some of the rest, but whatever, because it was more important to hang out and after all i didn't, like, hire my family to come work for me, was borderline upsetting to her. which, okay, she finds it fun to take a place that's in a considerable state of disarray and make it all tidy and livable.

but: i was feeling pretty good about the level of settling-in i had done by myself. i was pretty jazzed about how little help it felt like i needed, once the packing and truck-loading and truck-unloading was done. and it's not anybody's intention to make me feel like i can't do things by myself; but the instinct to give me a hand, whether i want it or not, rings (i now realize) a bell in my subconscious that sounds like it's a good thing you have people to help you out, because on your own, you can't hack it.

the fact that this bell has harmonic tones of you are jobless and single, and will probably be so forever is also not helpful.

granted: graduating is stressful. moving is stressful. not sleeping more than about three hours a night for five days running is stressful. the fourth week of a girl's hormonal cycle is stressful. so that's four grains of salt, right there -- but that doesn't drown out the chime.

in short, i adore them, but i'm always glad when they leave and i get to remind myself that i can, so, live alone.

Comments

[darthhellokitty.livejournal.com]

Oh, Fox-babe, combining parents-visiting stress, graduation stress, moving stress, and job-hunting stress all at one time: I'm amazed you're not in a straight jacket! I can't really think of a lot of friends of mine who'd handle this as calmly as you're doing. ***hugs*** and you so totally have a freak-the-fuck-out-for-free card in your account, should you ever choose to use it.

[wholenother.livejournal.com]

Aw, :::hugs:::

You know, no one can make it on his/her own. Not even beyond those I-need-a-third-hand things. But that's part of why we live in society. And I've always admired your tenacity, for what it's worth.

[ellen-fremedon.livejournal.com]

Oh, Fox. That's just too much stress for one week. Way too much. *hugs you*

I have exactly the opposite problem-- I get along very well with my parents, but I feel much saner when they come to visit me than when I go home over winter break. When they come to see me, I don't have to put my whole life on hold; I just have to fit them into it. But when I go home-- I have no internet! And that means no contact at all with anyone else I know, since my parents are the only people I still communicate with by phone. (I hate the phone. Hate it hate it hate it. Email and IM make me so much social.) I can't go home without feeling like I've stepped back in time and become a child again, only the isolation at home now is even greater than it was then, since I haven't kept in contact with any of my old classmates and I no longer know anyone in the county except my parents. It's stressful.

[axiom_of_stripe]

oh, yeah. how much do i totally hear that? so much.

for me, i always find that it helps to stand in the middle of the biggest room in the apartment and do a mine-mine-mine dance. what sort of things to you do to cope? ;)

[darthfox.livejournal.com]

what sort of things to you do to cope?

cry. rant about it behind their backs. look forward to sending them back home again.

:-)

no, seriously. i do notice subtle things i do to reinforce the mine-ness of the place i live now, and i see my brother do the same. we both leave (and ask visitors, parents included, to leave) shoes at the door, for instance, which was not a feature of our house growing up. in his case, it has a lot to do with the fact that his fiancee is asian, and did grow up not wearing shoes all through the house. in mine, it has to do with the fact that i prefer to be shoeless and not to step on grit or melted snow or whatever from other people's shoes, to say nothing of cleaning the carpet when it gets dingy faster. in both cases, it's an adjustment for my folks to make in deference to the fact that they don't live there.

i'm sure there are other things. but they're less mine-and-not-my-parents' and more mine-and-nobody-else's. if it's a hot day, for instance, and i've locked the door and pulled the blinds, there's nothing stopping me from removing as much clothing as i need to to cool off. ;-)