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I wanted lots of snow, and now I have it-about three feet in spots here in Somewheresville due to winds and drifting.  It is supposed to end late this afternoon, which will be good and I am glad it’s finally winter.  As mom would say, “Well it is December so it’s time we had this…”

Christmas was quiet and a little sad.  Since it was just my elderly mother and I there wasn’t much hoo-pla or goings-on, but that’s alright.  I was a little disappointed that my sister who lives closest to us didn’t come down for even a night or two. Mom would have loved that.  This is the sibling who has grown somewhat distant in the past year or so.  I imagine that she’s having emotional difficulties in dealing with my mother’s aging and so forth, but then again, I am only imagining this. It would have been nice to see her and mom would’ve gotten a kick out of it.  The other sister is doing well and on her way with my niece on a little trip before the niece goes back to the Women’s College she is attending.  She’s practically a straight-A student which is a big testament to her mother and the Waldorf School she went to in Maine.  In many ways I am jealous.

I am jealous because I could have thrived in that kind of environment, and there were, and are still, two of these schools quite nearby–a Steiner School just across the border and a Waldorf just up the road.  My father, unfortunately, is narrow-minded and traditional when it comes to education.  His problem was that I could never focus on discipline and my studies and was always doing well at what I wanted to do and not what he wanted me to do.  After reviewing my past I am convinced that I have ADD.  I show all the classic symptoms.  His own ignorance prevented me from blossoming and growing.  Instead he stunted my growth with insults and invectives, accusing me of being lazy and stupid.  I remember once that he called me a “goddamn moron”.  I shit you not.  Sixth grade in Iowa.  This is from a man who claims to love me?   I have always wondered who it was who told me that I was stupid and lazy.  I always knew it was him, but was incapable of admitting it to myself.  I always blamed someone else.  No wonder I believed him–he was my father and fathers do not lie.

I had a visit with him last weekend in the Big City as well.  It was a painful 12 hours long and I felt better the more distance I put between the two of us when I left on Sunday.  I can’t bear to be around him.

I guess I have some resentments around my family, but maybe that’s natural given the time of year.  I am two weeks into my 9th year of sobriety and much has improved in my life–no thanks to most of them, by the way.  I need to set some new ground rules. For a start, no more books or clothes for gifts.  If you ask me what I want and I tell you and you get me something else, I am sending it back to you.  Unless its flowers.  I like those.  And coffee.

Johnnyboy