![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
[271/366] too much and not enough
Sep. 27th, 2020 09:33 pmAndrew and I got to see his dad today, so Andrew could help him with some computer stuff and some financial stuff now. It's the first time Andrew has been further than the end of our road since the tenth of March. We all wore masks the whole time and his dad is religiously spraying sanitizer on everything. It was nice to see him, if weird to be sitting in his kitchen with the back door open and sneaking my mask off to drink some tea.
His dad's playlist of Old Man Music included at one point the Lou Reed song "Perfect Day," which now inevitably reminds me of my own dad who has a cheeseball version of someone like Susan Boyle singing this, that I've heard every Christmas for years but won't this year and suddenly I am not okay about that at all. We all know what a trial isiting my family is for me, but I've always said the only thing worse than being there for Christmas would be not being there. I've never missed a year, and I am not looking forward to finding out what it feels like to do that.
It's Sunday so I skyped my parents this evening. Mom was lying in bed because she'd done way too much the last couple days: making crusts for and baking nine apple pies. Her sisters and mom came out yesterday to peel apples, but I think Mom did everything else. I have cozy memories of helping peel apples, with both my sets of grandparents still around to help when I was a kid.
I assured them I'd visit as soon as I can, Dad said maybe for the state fair next year. I tried to make a joke about how it at least wasn't only me who had to miss it this year; no one could go. Mom said "they" (presumably the TV news; my dad likes 'CCO) shared pictures people had sent in of previous fairs since it didn't happen this year. I said it's kinda mean to remind people of what they're missing, and then had to soften it by adding "but it's nice too." I'm feeling the same about skyping them, tbh. It is nice, but it's hard sometimes to see and hear them, especially catching little glimpses behind them of a house I know so well, my dad telling me which tree the apples came from as if I didn't climb it as a kid and pick apples from it myself, knowing he's in his Vikings sweatshirt because it's Sunday... It's too much, it's not enough.
His dad's playlist of Old Man Music included at one point the Lou Reed song "Perfect Day," which now inevitably reminds me of my own dad who has a cheeseball version of someone like Susan Boyle singing this, that I've heard every Christmas for years but won't this year and suddenly I am not okay about that at all. We all know what a trial isiting my family is for me, but I've always said the only thing worse than being there for Christmas would be not being there. I've never missed a year, and I am not looking forward to finding out what it feels like to do that.
It's Sunday so I skyped my parents this evening. Mom was lying in bed because she'd done way too much the last couple days: making crusts for and baking nine apple pies. Her sisters and mom came out yesterday to peel apples, but I think Mom did everything else. I have cozy memories of helping peel apples, with both my sets of grandparents still around to help when I was a kid.
I assured them I'd visit as soon as I can, Dad said maybe for the state fair next year. I tried to make a joke about how it at least wasn't only me who had to miss it this year; no one could go. Mom said "they" (presumably the TV news; my dad likes 'CCO) shared pictures people had sent in of previous fairs since it didn't happen this year. I said it's kinda mean to remind people of what they're missing, and then had to soften it by adding "but it's nice too." I'm feeling the same about skyping them, tbh. It is nice, but it's hard sometimes to see and hear them, especially catching little glimpses behind them of a house I know so well, my dad telling me which tree the apples came from as if I didn't climb it as a kid and pick apples from it myself, knowing he's in his Vikings sweatshirt because it's Sunday... It's too much, it's not enough.