November Just Flew the Fuck By
Hello December. Please be nice.
I’ve been working on a post (or two or five) for weeks. It’s not coming yet, as I am still processing events from the end of October. Now, also November, or more accurately, throughout the past year?
To start off, neither me, nor any of my friends or family won the Queen of Hearts. Big sad face. The next round will start with a $100,000 jackpot and the drawing on December 6th (ticket sales starting November 27th). It turns out that however many tickets they sell during the week before the jackpot is won is how much starts the next jackpot. So, it’s a super high starting point, but it will go back to 54 cards in play (including the two jokers).
I’ve spent most of the past month mindlessly binging shows like it’s my job, playing endless rounds of Spades (which I just need to delete from my phone!), and checking out trying to avoid all of the things. But, if you haven’t seen Deadloch on Amazon Prime, it is FANTASTIC!! It’s billed as a “feminist noir comedy,” (IMdB). It has just the right amount of humor and mystery to keep you glued episode after episode. It was just what I needed (and would love to find something along these same lines if you know of anything in similar fashion).
Then I binged the two seasons of Yellow Jackets (since Paramount+ includes Showtime now!!) within maybe 3-4 days. That was fucking dark. I do not recommend gobbling up that whole two seasons in that short amount of time. It had me looking at food in a whole new way.
As I was eagerly awaiting the arrival of Frybread Face and Me (2023) on Netflix, I started watching the series Fargo on Hulu. And I got hooked. Made it through the first season in a couple of days. I’m now midway through season 3. I’m pretty sure I will catch up and have to start watching the new season’s episodes as they air. I’m not great at having to wait for new episodes.
I did take a break a couple episodes into season 3 of Fargo to watch Frybread Face and Me (2023). It was so good. I highly recommend it.
As you can gather, my avoidance is strong.
I’ve also entered the time of the year where finances are the biggest struggle. At least this year, I am starting a new course on the 12th of December. Last year, the last course I taught for the year ended at the end of November, and I didn’t get another course contract until mid-January. Still, the college closes down for the holidays, and the pay is stretched out over so that each of the bi-weekly pays will only be for one week until the end of January. It’s going to be a huge struggle. I need to do something about it, but I don’t even know what there is to do short of trying to find a part-time job that can work with my hours. Most places have designated shift times that really don’t jive with my available hours. So, I’m panic avoiding my financial situation by occupying my thinking time with games of Spades and Woodoku, scrolling social media, and binging shows.
At this time last year, I was pushing/procrastinating the deadline for the Quad Cities Beer: A History book manuscript submission, and fighting regularly with my co-writer. Our fighting had started at the end of June last year, and pretty much lasted until a bit after the book release party on August 12th. So, over a year’s worth of constant strife went into this book. I could do a deep dive on this, and at one point (or more) I did start drafting an exposé, tell-all piece about it. Maybe some day I will, but what would it ultimately serve? I’ve discussed it with enough people that I’ve kind of worked beyond it. The biggest issue I was dealing with there was that he was and is a narcissist. Things went well as long as I did everything he wanted, in the ways he wanted, and let him control everything and do everything he said without question.
I’ve had a lot of conversations lately about dealing with a narcisst as I was married to and/or living with one for about sixteen years. I still have to deal with him, as do my children. Unfortunately, they have to spend 50% of their time with him. It is so hard to know that half of the time they are being gaslit, isolated, manipulated, and controlled. I don’t even know how to combat that or how to reverse the damage. I just offer them acceptance and allow them to be themselves when they are with me. I need to do things better and help to give them tools that I am learning, and have more conversations with them about it. We did have several conversations about things over the past week. But, then I know the younger three were sat down last night and talked at by the two adults they are spending this week with and gaslit and told things to manipulate them and their perspectives. Ultimately, I know that they know what is true and real. But, it’s still hard. They have 2, 4, and 6 years left before they can legally make the decision not to live half of the time in a toxic environment. The hardest part for me is knowing that I can’t do anything about it. As hard as it is for me, they are the ones doing most of the suffering.
I owe so much gratitude to my youngest sister for helping me navigate these toxic relationships. I’m actually a bit in awe of her knowledge, awareness, and ability to manage these things. I don’t know how or where she became so good at it. (I mean I kind of do - it’s taken her a LOT of work in therapy and that she’s been trained in mediation/conflict resolution for her job in Human Resources). In our family, conflict resolution was managed through conflict avoidance at all costs. That’s what we were taught, and that was what was modeled for us growing up. If there was a conflict, we didn’t talk about it, and we certainly didn’t face it or try to remedy it. We shackled it up and ignored it until (hopefully) it just went away. This all really just means that if we did end up having to face or remedy a conflict (because how often does it really go away?), we didn’t have the tools necessary to do so in a healthy way.
I want to be clear here that I am not putting any blame on my mother. I’m sure that this is how she was raised and what she was taught, so that is what she passed down. It’s a part of that whole “Midwest Politeness.” There was a podcast episode of We Can Do Hard Things where Geena Davis talks about this and how it almost killed her. It’s one of my favorite episodes, and definitely worth a listen. But, it was also very much a generational thing that is starting to dissipate with the Millenials and GenZs. It’s probably still a part of my generation’s (GenX) thinking and starts to whittle out on the cusp with my sister’s later GenX peers (1979-1980).
While I couldn’t find an exact definition for “Midwest Politeness,” I found one for “Minnesota Nice,” which is the essence of the idea that it’s a “polite friendliness, an aversion to open confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a direct fuss or stand out, apparent emotional restraint, and self-depreciation.” (Wikipedia). You want to know what’s hilariously ironic about this whole idea? This definition from Wikipedia also states, “Minnesota nice was an influence on the Coen Brothers movie Fargo, set in both Minnesota and neighboring North Dakota.” The first season of the series is based on the film. This attitude permeates the entire series so far.
This ideal is so hard to let go of. I’ve used this method of operation for most of my life. Well, really all of my life. I’m just now learning how to address conflict in better ways. Hopefully, healthy ways. And I’m 54!!!
It took me MONTHS and MONTHS of dealing with my toxic co-writer to finally ask for help. Because asking for help is another thing that you just don’t do.
I’ve been doing a lot of looking inward over the past few months. I have to wonder that if I had understood healthy boundaries and knew better how to make and enforce them earlier, how things may have gone differently. Not that I’m there with boundaries, but I’m starting the process of learning. I can’t change things that are in the past, but I can certainly try to do things better going forward. Advocate better for myself. Establish better boundaries for myself. Teach my children how to advocate better for themselves and establish better boundaries. Ask for help sooner.
After having a long discussion with my sister, I revisited a great podcast on boundaries. I listened to it again, and had my oldest listen to a segment.
I purchased the book by Melissa Urban, “The Book of Boundaries: Set the Limits That Will Set You Free” after the first time I listened to the episode. I need to actually read it and re-read it until I can fully learn and do. One of my favorite parts in the episode is the explanation that you can’t control someone else - because you really can’t. That was very enlightening to me. I never understood how to go about not allowing someone to talk to me in negative and disrespectful ways. People would say, “if you let them talk to you that way, they will.” When I understood that idea, I tried it the only way I knew how. I told someone they couldn’t talk to me that way. Telling someone they can’t talk to me like that never worked. Telling someone what they can and can’t do is a form of control. The idea is that you can only tell them what you will and won’t accept. And then you can give consequences for breaking a boundary that you have set. The segment where Urban gives examples, is so entirely insightful and helpful. The segment where she talks about this and gives examples starts around the 21.35 mark.
I am probably going to sit down with each of my children and play this segment for them, and help guide them through handling situations where they will need to use this guidance and these tools. Hopefully this will help them.
This week, I’m going to pay attention to discussing and modeling some friend relationships with my oldest since it will be the first week that it’s just him and I. Friends are so important. It’s a topic I have intended to write about for a while, and have a couple of essays started about. I went most of my adult life without friends, and now, finally, I have a good group of friends. My kids need to understand the importance of friendships and friend communities.
With a break in teaching, I’m going to really work at planning out a publishing schedule and work on some of the drafts I have going here - aiming once again for at least one newsletter a week!
Thank you all for being here!!
~Kristin