pura vida

I feel like Vien may have already used this title. Let me clarify! This post is not about being stuck in Costa Rica. It doesn’t reference moody pop songs, contain emojis or display original, cryptic digital artwork. Please look at almost any other blog post on this site (because really we should call this Vien’s blog nowadays) for that kind of content. Especially this one, whose images I am stealing for this post.

But it does really bring teenage angst vibes. Get ready for it! I’m not even sure I knew I had all this angst until I made that title and connected the dots with Vien’s experience. Guys, I’m stuck in a loop with my family in Seattle. It’s painful for me to admit and maybe a little dangerous to admit too.

What does it mean to be stuck in a loop? On my worst day, it means I feel de-prioritized. Plain and simple there’s no way around it. On my best day, it means I can make excuses for my family to help soften the blows. On any day I have a cycle of anger and frustration, trying to change my behavior, over-thinking my actions, and then … rinse and repeat.

Here are all the excuses for my family I’ve made over the years about various things. As I’m writing this, I’m having the knee jerk reaction of justifying my justifications. Like, I really want you to know THAT THESE REASONS ARE REAL. Stuck in the loop. Stuck in the loop.

We’re far. We chose to be far. Our kids are older and not as cute anymore. Our kids are older and can travel better than the younger kids. My family’s so busy. My family’s not good at communicating and planning. It’s not personal. My family needed to cancel this that and the other because they are so busy, they have young kids. My family has to balance their significant others’ plans and desires. We’ll figure it out when we get there, they’re just not good at doing things beforehand, they’re so busy. It’s my family’s culture. We weren’t raised as planners because my mom did all that and when she died no one had the skills to do so. I know they’re trying, they’re just not good at it.

Ug I though that would feel good to say but it felt like shit. It’s bringing up all the resentments. What about ME? I have three kids. I’m not particularly good at planning, in fact I’m downright bad. I came to your graduations, to your weddings, to hang out for girls weekends, to clean out the house, during covid, just to say hi. I came pregnant. I came with my 9 month old, my 3 year old, my three kids. I offered to take your kids so they could hang out with my kids. I call you. I wait on our meeting link while you’re late on another call. I planned the trip you complained about because I thought it would make it easier for you to come. I planned your family reunion that you didn’t really show up to, and the one you canceled on. I stayed silent when you canceled this and that. Didn’t show up to this and that.

During my last trip to see family, I realized I can’t fix it anymore. I have needs. I am usually traveling with my three kids and I need a little advanced planning. And if my family can’t handle that, tough shit, as my mom used to say. I can’t keep putting in 80% of the effort when I get such little return. And they seem totally fine with that. For me, it’s very sad but I CAN’T FIX IT.

Primal scream.

I don’t know why it’s so hard to feel this stuff. I mean I actually do know why, it touches on all the old wounds of a mid-lifetime, of a childhood. It sucks! And as with much teenage angst, there is bad poetry that follows:

Along the leafy sky
dirt road trunk of life
I think about the ways I have moved.
When you push me this way or that
I follow like water.
I am the rain falling down and the river
and the sea, moving in the places
those before me have cut.
Safely I roll on this path
deforming to every shape
so invisible you can see others
through my skin
through my organs.

I need to remember gravity,
the way it tugs on my body
and holds me to a labor,
bringing me to its lowest point.
Psst, remember
you will fall forever
as a droplet.
You will keep trickling down and down
through the earth and rock,
into the volcano and the crust.
Even the air will bear down on you
until you solidify and become
something opaque.