🧩 Today’s Puzzle Pieces 🧩
Break Stuff🎶
Innovative Architecture🏢
Wedding Weekend Absence💒
THE DAILY UPDATE
Three Things I’m Grateful For Today:
- That all familial drama was solved well in advance of this amazing long weekend so everyone who matters could be here and enjoy themselves.
- That those who don’t belong here aren’t here.
- That I will officially have an amazing daughter-in-law in just a few days.
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Connections
Puzzle #355
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The song in my head when I woke up: “Break Stuff,” by Limp Bizkit
Favorite line from the song in my head when I woke up: It’s all about the he says/she says bullshit/I think you better quit talkin’ that shit
Wedding Prep Tunes: Songs from John’s Ultimate Chill Song Compendium:
- 45, Shinedown
- Absence of Fear, Jewel
- Africa, Toto
- Against The Wind, Bob Seger & The Silver Bullet Band
- All These Years, Sawyer Brown
- Brown Eyed Girl, Van Morrison
Something I’m looking forward to today: Finishing off the toast I’m gonna give Sunday.
Something I’m looking forward to in the next seven days: Boy The Elder’s wedding.
Something I’m grateful for from yesterday: That the rehearsal and rehearsal dinner went off perfectly.
What I’m writing: Yesterday’s Two Crappy Pages involved nothing. No time for writing.
What I’ve written: Innovative Architecture: Rogelio Almaguer created his own architecture firm in Mexico thanks to the knowledge he gained in the MPM program. Now, he’s looking to leverage technology to help the company grow globally.
It was a number of years ago in a therapy session when my therapist at the time, a very good one at that, said something completely incorrect. “You miss your sister.”
“Um, no I don’t,” I replied.
“Yes you do. I’m sure you might not be aware of it, but deep down, you miss your sister.”
“No I don’t,” I repeated.
“Sure you do.”
“No. I don’t,” I said. “Not in the least. I might miss the concept of having a sister. But I don’t miss the reality of what my sister was.”
A few years later, that concept has extended to the rest of my birth family, and it was brought front-and-center by their notable absence from this weekend’s festivities, as Boy The Elder weds a wonderful young woman.
Last night’s rehearsal and rehearsal dinner was absolutely wonderful. BTE and the FDIL were surrounded by people who love them, who have been around them since their inception, both as individuals and as a couple. The laughter was as free-flowing as the spirits, as various groups mixed and mingled — around the fire pit, by the cornhole game, in the backyard throwing a baseball around, sitting at the tables eating the Official Dessert of the State of Missourah, Gooey Butter Cake.
Nowhere was there even the hint of drama, was there a focus on anything but the joy of the moment and the celebration of this soon-to-be newly married couple.
My birth parents had threatened that peace and love. They continue to spew bullshit and lies, which is the hallmark of narcissistic gaslighters. One falsehood they continue to say is that they they weren’t invited. That’s not true. They were invited. They chose not to come because they would rather have shown up after not talking to their son and daughter-in-law for more than a year after they said they had issues with him but then refused to have a conversation about those issues.
That was their decision. And decisions, as they raised me to know, have consequences.
When you’re so hooked on your own drama and bullshit that you’d rather not be at your grandson’s wedding to avoid having a conversation to address the issues you said you have, well, you’ve made a decision, and that decision had the consequence of the fact that BTE didn’t want them here. Nor did his bride. That was a decision I fully supported because my son- and daughter-in-law-to-be saw the truth on their own that where my parents go, so goes drama, and they didn’t want that drama at their wedding.
I was obligated, then, to serve as the bad guy by telling my birth parents that, because they refused to have an adult conversation to resolve their issues, they were expected to decline the invitation so the focus could be on my son and his bride and not their always-accompanying drama.
And then, my birth father wrongly assumed that I was doing this behind BTE’s back and so he forwarded the email I sent to him (my birth father) to BTE in an attempt to drive a wedge between us. That, my friends, was the final nail in the coffin of any relationship I might ever have with those wonderful people who birthed me. You do not try to come between me and my son because your feelings are hurt that you were called out on your bullshit and told it has a consequence.
So no matter what they might put out there in letters to my sons or in Facebook posts that are stupidly vague, I’m going to use my own voice to tell the truth, to bring light to the parts of the story they conveniently choose to forget. The truth is simple: They said they had issues. I said “Let’s talk about them.” They refused. A. B. C.
A+B+C=D, and D is the reality we are living that I don’t have parents, and I don’t miss my parents. I miss the concept of what parents should be, not the reality of who my parents actually are — destructive, drama-laden humans.
Everyone … everyone … is happier they are not here. There is nothing but love surrounding the new couple this weekend. That’s a great consequence flowering from the rancid stench of their bad actions.
At some point, one of two things will happen: They will either die or they will learn that it is unwise to air falsehoods about a guy who writes for a living. I have no problem correcting the errors in their narrative until either of those things happens, and I’m not really caring about keeping all the dirty little family secrets that have been buried for so long. I’d be happy to share it all.
They are not victims. They are two petty, miserable individuals who could never humble themselves to say they are sorry for anything and who might actually believe the self-righteous bullshit they spew. Look at the outcome of that. This weekend is a glorious celebration among people who love each other and support each other and who lift each other up.
And they are not here.
Seems about right to me.
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