Coming to you live from 7,000 miles from infinity…

Dear Allison,

I’m going to try to be less ambitious today. I have a couple of letters for you, unsent because I haven’t finished the tales within them. It takes no time at all to tell the story in my mind, but that does not seem to jibe with how long it takes to re-tell in words. Imagine! Lol. The difference between the theoretical and the actual is ever in the forefront of my mind.

I do hope you and Forrest are having a good Monday. Mondays can be cantankerous, I know. They are different for me now, being home, but I do empathise with the modern workforce still. It is overcast here today and cool. Sometimes that can be depressing, but I find it oddly comforting today and protective. Cosy. Ms. B is asleep on the couch, seeming to feel the same, so I wonder if you both are. I like that you keep Forrest near as you work. Work can lead us out of reality, but an animal can lead us back to it. They can remind us of what is actually happening in the present in a relieving way. I hope you and Forrest are enjoying such a symbiosis today.

I was doing a “brain dump” in my almanack entry, and I wrote the following, which may be of interest to you. It’s about Mama. It was cathartic to write and think about. I was listening to the song I have pinned at the top of my Threads account, as I am wont to do. There’s a lyric in the song that stuck out today: “There’s no phone and no way home.” I realised that I truly had no way home anymore because what I would call “home” in my heart no longer exists. And then I thought about the causation of all that and… there you have it. I’ve included the song and my paragraph below.

https://youtu.be/_AxhOgHf-SE?si=wiLMF8tj9ggeAE83

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Just thought about how my mom is basically always guilting me in subtext about not staying local. But she and my dad have both intentionally gotten rid of any home place I had. Every “home” I could designate in childhood has been sold, two of which my mother had a direct say in, so I have no home to go to. If they had wanted me to feel a sense of connection, they made little effort to maintain it. Nearly everything I can think of that I valued at the farm is long gone and sold off to developers. Not by my choice or hand. And I couldn’t afford to buy the places, as well they knew. They could buy my grandma’s house right now, but they won’t. Empty values about “country life” and farming. No money where their mouths are. Or very, very little. Selfish. Mama had the opportunity to do something different, but she didn’t. She went along with the men-folk as the ultimate “pick-me” girl. The “men-folk” in question being capitalistic narcissists who are shortsighted. My uncle could have been happy years ago if he’d gotten into a different career, but he keeps chasing the money dragon. She went to a place where I cannot follow. She lives in an absolutely soulless house in a subdivision named for antebellum times but did not exist two decades ago. The subdivision she lives in, in fact, is a testament to the thing I despise. And she decorates it in “Live Laugh Love” greige and cream and wonders why I feel no connection to the damn place. Because it only reflects her. And not even her. The “her” she thinks others want to see. It is so sad and hollow.

After I was done typing that paragraph, I felt a desire to share it with you. Yes, I am angry with her for all of this, but I also feel a real empathy for the “soul murder” that Pop did to her. But it’s hard to know what to do with this dynamic in the present. The problem I have with the “no contact” method of solving this is that it often stems from black-and-white thinking as well. I’m not saying it’s not sometimes necessary. I don’t even like being estranged from Mother B., but I do that for my safety because she is so abusive when she wants to be. Mama is a different ball of wax. She has more impulse control. It’s also about stretching myself too, right? Like how do we navigate relationships and things…building emotional and social strength and courage and coping mechanisms. So just shutting people off permanently does nothing for that. Temporarily perhaps…Idk. This leads into a whole other sociological conversation for me about migration to the cities and away from towns and relying on toxic family dynamics less and so on…a sociological and anthropological reflection on the 20th century perhaps.

Anywho, I shall cope with it all right now by ignoring it and brushing my teeth, getting dressed, and starting the laundry. Lol. I can’t do anything about it right now anyway, if ever. I am sure you are up to your eyeballs in someone else’s personal difficulties. Now I feel bad for sending you this. :-( Hey, you are not responsible for my feelings, okay? >.< Seriously, though, I am just chatting. Pay no heed to the lady behind the curtain. <3

Ciao, bella. Love you. Mean it. Tell Forrest, “Ditto.”

Sincerely and with all due respect,

Case Study #69