Diary of a Sex-Starved Pseudo-Mennonite, Part 22

Because I'm ancient and it's Sunday, I was just collecting vitamins from their bottles to put in my day-of-the-week pill-ganizer. As I dumped the first pills into my hand, I thought because I'm psychic I might naturally dump out 7 vitamins without even trying. After I dropped each pill at day camp, it turned out I was right. As I dumped the second type of vitamins in my hand I wondered if this might happen again, then thought I was being cocky so I would probably go 1 pill over. And I did. Perfect 7. Then cocky 8.

The Saturday night before July 4 at the home my aunt, uncle and mother now share in the Midwest, the geriatric set was counting and organizing their pills for the week. My uncle, who during COVID survived the same cancer that soon after killed my stepdad, had commandeered the dining table for this heady endeavor. Not long after, I spied my mother doing the same in the bathroom, door open cuz as you may have noticed, my people have no boundaries. The only person who appeared not to be prepping their pills in this house on a holiday weekend Saturday was my aunt, who probably has the most pills and doesn't want to fucking talk about it, so she pill-ganizes in private, the act in itself so upsetting I suspect she wants to pound alternating Cheetos and fudge to counteract the emotional impact of the galaxy of potential poor outcomes these pills represent. Except when I'm there, my aunt is the young 1 in the house.

I counted pills that morning. My usual daily 4 plus an allergy pill and prescription nasal spray and antibiotics (plus probiotics to counteract the antibiotics, whose side effect led to the Monistat 7 flood in Part 17) for the sinus infection I took on while exploring the now foreign lands of my youth. Seems I always get sick when I go home. And when I am 6 and 8 and 10 and 12 and 14 and 16 and 25 and 47, I am the 1 who has to determine that I am ill and then try to get my mom to help me fix it. What I determined that holiday Saturday night was that I had to get free of this very fine nursing home while the getting was good. Luckily my girlfriend had already arranged bail and I would be sprung into fun by the next afternoon (see Part 14).

For some, regardless of deep and abiding love, our relations make us sick. And if we can't agree on boundaries or accept that they may never become what we think we need or want or deserve (or needed and wanted and deserved) from them and love them anyway and not let them activate us, we might just walk away. If you walk away, be sure it's your idea and you are not walking into the arms of someone else who wants the other people you love out of the picture and who is in fact much more toxic than your childhood family and will make you sicker than a goddamn dog each day of your life with them, so sick you won't even know you're sick so you just keep drinking the poison in your morning coffee and blame yourself for not feeling so hot.

If people who are supposed to love you don't, it's not your fault. Depending on your beliefs, God or science made you perfect. Even if you're fat and you have a bad temper, you're perfect. Even if you're poor and you make equally poor choices, you're perfect. You're perfect for you and you're perfect for me and even if you don't believe in us, me and God--we love you. And we believe you and believe in you. And so should you.

Until Next Time, Sweeties!

Ness Sweet Ness