August 5, 2005

It has been far too long since I did an off topic update for my friends.  This time of year is always busy for me as the harvest starts to come in.  I've been spending hours working out in the garden, bringing in the first of the veggies and herbs and such.  I am surprised that the growth is as good as it is this year considering the late and hurried start I got, but it hasn't been half bad.  By the time I get in, I'm dripping sweat and dirty as hell and wiped out.  I'm old and it surprised me how missing just a year of this caused me to get such an ass kicking from it this year.

I have also been putting together in my head all of the things that have happened this year, recent and past.  I've done lots of meditating and pathworking to figure out what I want in my life and how best to get it.  I am in no way oblivious to how fortunate I am personally.  I have enough money to live on.  I have my home back and I have pretty much reclaimed the parts of my life that were lost to me before. 

My relationship with Colin is still friendly, for which I am very grateful. He has been by twice to visit since we split up and each time, it was comfortable and warm, if slightly nostalgic.  Both he and I have moved on to different places, both of us happier and the obvious conclusion being that the break up was for the best.  I am completely at peace with it and I believe he is as well.  He is involved with someone else and I am not and do not expect to be.  I think I have just been on my own (with the exception of my mother, I am speaking relationship wise) for too long to collapse myself into someone else and what they are doing and how they are living.  It was a lovely part of my life as far as my overall experience canoeing in the river of love, but I think I do better on my own.  It works better for me that way.

My family is another story and I have had to come to some pretty harsh realizations regarding most of them.  It's really odd how a change of perspective can cause you to see things you never even noticed before, to the point of even going back through your history and viewing events and circumstances with new eyes.  Although I should not be grateful, I actually am.  I think it is always better to know the truth about how things are than to dance obliviously through the lies and misperceptions. 

Without going into too many details, which are more personal to me than internet confessions allow, there are actually to points of contention that I do not think are going to be resolved to anyone's satisfaction.  Both involve the "fact" (perception of most of my family, anyway) that I am a hard-hearted bastard.  It hurts to be seen that way, but I am not willing to do the rolling over and exposing of the soft, white, vulnerable underbelly that would be required to be thought of as anything better or different. 

The first point, of course, is the Kye and Vince situation.  I felt I was reasonable in reclaiming the house.  Back when I was still living with mom, it was decided by my mother, Kye, Vince and a couple of the sisters that the "best thing" would be for the two of them and their children to move into our house when Mom moved out.  As most of you know who follow the off topic stuff, that wasn't cool with me.  I was in a different headspace back then and instead of kicking up a fuss, I moved out myself and let them use the house in what I thought was a temporary situation.  A year and a half later when Colin and I were splitting up, they were still there and as I said, had not been particularly kind to the house or my belongings that were left there.  I did not exaggerate.  It was as I described to you.  They were showing no signs of improving their situation, even though the financial burden of rent had been lifted from them. 

I wanted my house back and although it would have been well within my rights to simply go through the eviction process, I instead gave them $5000 to set up alternative housing somewhere and get settled in.  It was short notice, but out of necessity, I was only able to give them 2 weeks' notice.  They were out in about a week.  Max set up an apartment for them that was reasonably priced and available immediately.  I thought they'd take it, but it turned out, they never moved in.  I ended up refunding to Max the money she invested to get it set up (it was a "put down a deposit or lose it" situation).  I do not know what they did with the money, but evidently, it was not set up housing and they ended up living with some of the sisters for a while and during that time, many discussions were carried out about the Sins of Sage. 

When I visited in July, it was more like walking into an "intervention" rather than a family reunion.  Everyone had something to say about how badly I'd treated by poor sister and her family and I got many lectures about how we are supposed to take care of one another and how I had put my sister on the street for my own selfish motives.  At first, I cared enough to attempt to explain.  They'd all been there at some time or another to see the condition of the house ("Sage, she has little children, these things happen.") and I had in my hand the signed receipt for the money order Max gave them for the $5000.  ("Sage, they had BILLS they HAD to pay!  They HAD to have a CAR.  You can't have children and not have a CAR.  They were trying to take care of themselves!")  There was no defense good enough.  Once I realized that after a few days, I just went back home.  Didn't tell anyone I was leaving; I just left.

Next item has come up since then.  The words, "In that big old house all by yourself" have been uttered more times than I have ever wanted to hear in the past month.  As a couple of you may recall, the whole reason my mother went on this walkabout was because she sensed that she only had two years left to live and wanted to spend that with her children, one at a time.  Mom has always had a psychic edge and so we had no reason not to believe her.  She appears to be in good health now, one year, nine months and 11 days into that announcement.  Of course, at her age, she could fall over dead at any minute and no one would say, "Hmm, didn't see THAT coming."  The committee of sisters, however, have seen fit to consider what exactly should be "done with Mom" should she NOT, in fact, die keel over by November 1st of this year. 

My vote is to continue as she has, sending her around from kid to kid.  She seems to enjoy it a good bit and it distributes her care (which is not nearly what it was when she lived with me) fairly among the kids.  THEIR vote is that since I am "in that big old house all by myself" that Mom comes back here to live out the rest of her days with Sage taking care of her.  When I let them know that it is simply not going to happen that way, they recoiled and bared their claws and hissed really hard like vampires suddenly thrust into daylight.  More fuel for the "Sage is a selfish bastard" fire. 

I'm not telling all of this to get sympathy (trust me, I'm feeling sorry enough for myself for all of us) or whine or fuss.  It's just to let you know that I've had some big issues I'm working on and so there's been a lot of time spent in deep thinking and mind organization.  I'm pretty much on top of it.  I know in my heart I did not do anything wrong.  I know that as much as I love her, even though her paranoia and weird thinking processes are a lot of what is fanning these flames, if my Mom moves in here, I will be smack in the center of the fray and will never have a moment's peace between her and my sisters.  So I am standing firm; letting them all know  that I love them but on these two issues, I am not going to bend.  They've hit the wall.

I know a lot of you want to know about The Head, but right now, there's not anything really to tell.  I still have The Head from when Kurt left it in the toilet.  :)  I'll get him.   Don't worry.

Beyond the issues of working my butt off in the garden (and the heat has FINALLY started letting up a little), dealing with those two family things and re-tiling my kitchen floor (ugh, never again), I've been a busy guy. 

And that's the story of Sage up until this moment.

All the best,