We went to Morgan Park today after my brother and his boys left to review it. It was good to do something together that wasn’t a screaming nightmare. Not that the whole visit was a screaming nightmare, but just that… I don’t know. I don’t know how to explain it. I’m really and sincerely starting to wonder about mental health issues across the board.
I mean, it’s one thing to say my family is batshit crazy. It’s another thing when you’re sitting there wondering just exactly what is going wrong with people.
I will say that this visit had a strange effect on me in that there were instances when I felt really bad for my dad. I have long thought that I didn’t want to get married because I didn’t want to end up with someone like him. This is the first time in my life where I ever felt like I never want to get married and have a family because I don’t want to end up like him, having to constantly be vigilant about the needs of others because they just won’t be for themselves. I mean, I’ve gotten used to the fact that someone always has to stay with Mom when we’re out in public or she wanders off and can’t be found. It’s been that way for as long as I can remember. But yesterday, in the middle of cooking the eggs for Easter, she wandered off into the backyard and got started on some other, complicated task, completely forgetting about the eggs.
And I can’t even talk about how things went with my brother. I honestly thought there was a moment today when he and the Butcher were going to come to blows over the state of the nephews. It’s funny. Sometimes I think my brother feels very judged, but damn, when someone actually judges him, out loud and to his face, it’s fucking ugly. I think that, if I weren’t so tired and burnt out, I’d wonder how their relationship is going to come back from that.
I feel bad because I just switched completely to bitch mode and stayed there all day today, yelling at people to get in the shower, yelling at them to get out, yelling at them to go to the bathroom, yelling at them to get out, yelling at them to get in the car, yelling at them to stop hitting or trying to hurt each other, yelling at them to get out of the car, yelling at them to come eat, yelling at them to get up, etc., etc., etc.
But at some point today, I had just had it with the chaos and was ready for some fucking order, and so I set out to instill it. Which, really, sucks as a way to go through life. Possibly every one of us should be seeing a shrink, but I just ran out of the ability to give a shit about it and I wanted people to just to their shit and get on their way. I’m sure it was unpleasant. I feel tired and terrible about it, but I just fucking broke.
Anyway, the sign at the fountain at Morgan Park says that there used to be a sulfur spring there and that the water was used in some voodoo practices. But I don’t think that can be right. There are so few Catholics in town, let alone black Catholics, that it seems like the chances of there being some kind of ongoing historical voodoo practices in Nashville are very slim.
I think it’s more likely the water was used in hoodoo practices, since an ongoing tradition of that is pretty demonstrable in the Nashville area.
But what can you do? Just be nerdy about it, I guess.
Tiny Cat Pants 