While I finish my book, I dog sit. When I am not traveling, I dog sit. I don’t always dog sit. I have a few regulars who call on me during the holidays or when they’re on vacation. It’s not a regular thing and it surely doesn’t bring in a lot of money. It is more of a hobby. A way to bring in a little spending money. A way to keep busy. A way to spend time with dogs, creatures who are uncomplicated, loyal, and accept and love you no matter what.
I cannot say the same thing about my mother.
My mother is the overriding subject in my book also titled ‘The Bear That Moved’ (80% complete, 100% un-edited). I won’t talk about her here except to quote her latest WhatsApp message when she found out I wasn’t going to be spending Christmas with her, my sister, my brother, and a bunch of other people from his wife’s family, because I had already agreed to take care of 3 dogs weeks before my brother decided to invite the whole family to his home in Georgia for the holidays.
The message goes as follows (translated from angry, Latin-American Spanish):
‘I just found out from your brother that you are not going to Atlanta because you have to take care of a dog (not bothering to acknowledge that it is in fact 3 dogs), giving the impression that an animal is more important than your family, and in addition it is the second time that when I ask him about you he says that he calls you and it seems that you are always too busy to speak to him, I don’t think that is right and daddy (she always brings in the dead guy) would think it was right too. Finally (thank God, I was wondering when her sentence would end and the period would be utilised!) it is your decision and I will not talk more of the matter.’
There are a few important things to note in this message. First, she would give Gabriel Garcia Marquez a run for his money with her excessive use of comas and utmost hesitation to end the damn sentence. Yes, she needed to get her frustrations out. I just wish she would have breathed a few times through her paragraph long sentence.
Anyway, I want to get some facts straight in my defence. Not that it matters to her or my brother who seem utterly victimised by my lifestyle and choices.
- My brother is a good guy but the fact of the matter is he hardly ever calls me. His work is all-consuming and everyone else is just a shadow walking by in the periphery. When he calls, which I appreciate, I answer if I am available. Only recently has he begun leaving voicemails, and I acknowledge them right away and offer to call back. But then he’s ‘busy’ and can’t talk. When I was in California for a month he called once, and it went to voicemail, and I didn’t get the voicemail until I returned to Colorado, along with 18 other voicemails stuck in cyberspace, because there was something wrong with my phone. I notified him of this right away. I still cannot figure out why he couldn’t text to say he wanted to talk. Usually when I call him he’s in a bad mood, or stressed, or sad, I never know because he never wants to talk about it. He only calls on his way to Starbucks, usually after he’s called my mother and my sister. He is usually not very chatty, and seldom offers any information about anything happening in his life. There have been many times these past few years that he has sent me rude and hurtful messages, which I eventually chose to forgive and ignore because I figured he was unhappy and just taking it out on me. When it is me who writes him I usually get a one word answer. ‘How’s it going?’ ‘With what?’ ‘How are you?’ ‘Fine’. What better way of telling your sister you enjoy being in contact! This makes it hard to want to talk to him but I doubt he’s ever bothered to put himself in my shoes and see the situation from my eyes. And yes, I have a busy life too. I travel a lot and when the weather is nice and my boyfriend is home I am out having fun because life is short and I may get run over by a car crossing the street or die of an aggressive brain tumour or get shot in a public place by a Trump supporter. It seems people always resent the fact I am out having fun and living my life to the fullest and not partaking in their misery.
- My mother has aways been dis-intersted and self-absorbed on her best days, and spiteful and overly critical on her worst days. She always thinks everything is about her, refuses to ever see anything from someone else’s perspective. Honestly, I think she can’t help it. That maternal instinct to care for her young didn’t make it through meiosis. Her brain is just wired different from most mothers’ and it’s taken me about 40 years to accept that. She wouldn’t bother to understand that my brother didn’t invite me to his house for Christmas until November 12th. I mean, who waits until November 12th to make Christmas plans besides a total loser with no friends or family? I had already committed to taking care of Hobbie, the 14-year old Golden Retriever I have been looking after the least 2 years. She’s nearing the end and her owners always ask me to look after her when they go out of town. Hobbie was probably one of my first friends in Colorado (even though she’s got 4 legs she can still be a friend!). I have probably spent more time with her than anyone else besides my boyfriend. She thinks I am awesome, loves having me around, and we have had many lovely walks and hikes together, where she never complains she is tired even though her arthritis is probably killing her. That’s more than I can say about some people in my family. After I had agreed to look after Hobbie at her house, some friends of ours who I had dog sat for back in October asked me to look after their two dogs over Christmas at their house; Romeo is a 14-year old Husky and Lily, a cattle mix about 5; both sweet, well-behaved pups (Lily likes to sleep in bed with me). Partly eager to help them out over the holidays when it is hard to find good petsitting, but also wanting to earn a bit of extra cash to pay for holiday gifts. But because Hobbie is old and cranky she cannot stay with other dogs, so my boyfriend will have to stay with Romeo and Lily, and I will have to stay with Hobbie. My boyfriend has a few days off over the holidays but has to work on Christmas Day, so the 24th we will meet for a few hours to have dinner and each sleep at our respective houses after we have each walked the 3 dogs 4 times a day. So after all these logistics were put in place, my brother says hey, we are having Christmas at our house, you are welcome to come! So was I supposed to leave Hobbie, Romeo, Lily and boyfriend on the street? Is that what a good daughter and sister would have done?
- The dead guy. My dad died in 2015. It is one of only 2 chapters in my book that still hasn’t been written because it’s something that’s very difficult to write. Not just his death itself, but the circumstances surrounding it, the years preceding it, and all the family drama and animosity between several family members, all the things left unsaid, and bitterness cast deep in bones. But it will get written, and my views on what transpired will get said, though I am sure it will upset a lot of people. Somehow my mother still clings on to the dead guy, even though the dead guy had left her years ago and moved on. The dead guy in fact had another girlfriend, who inherited most of his money. The dead guy didn’t care much for my mother, at least not for the 10 years before his passing. So it is always amusing that she clings on to his memory for dear life, as well as a photo of him from the late 60s where he said he would love her forever (never believe what men say, ladies, nothing is forever!). I always think of what my dad would think of what I am doing. I always wonder, would he be disappointed in me? Would he be let down? I do believe he’s somehow always with me, seeing everything I do, and though paralyzing at times, I try to act like a decent human being given the shitty upbringing I had and my personal circumstances (I am far from perfect but I am always trying to grow as a person). So I wonder if my dad is really floating up in the multiverse interspace looking down on me thinking ‘Julie, you are a really shitty person for not spending Christmas with your family and instead taking care of 3 dogs who you committed to taking care of before your family bothered to invite you for Christmas!’. NO. My dad most defiantly would not be thinking that. Sorry to break the newsflash to my family, but I was my dad’s favourite. That wasn’t because I was the prettiest, or the smartest, or the one with the PhD, but because he saw something in me that was a lot like something in him. My dad always acted according to his will, he didn’t care what anyone else thought, he could be rude, yes, abrupt, yes, thoughtless, yes, but he followed his heart and that’s something 80% of people don’t have the guts to do. So leave the dead guy out of it. He’s on my side. And he always told me I should be a writer, so is probably proud I am finally writing.
My mom’s WhatsApp left me in a really bad mood yesterday. I was told by several previous managers to wait 24 hours before responding to an email that made me angry. Because my response was never pretty. I couldn’t wait 24 hours to respond to my mom’s WhatsApp. I fired back, said what was on my mind. And that was the end of that conversation.
Families are complicated. People are complicated. The holidays seem to bring the worst out of everyone. Everyone gets so stressed about having people come visit, buying gifts, mailing Christmas cards, cooking a meal everyone will enjoy. Christmas has turned into this ridiculous excuse of a holiday where people who are supposed to be kind and loving to each other the way Jesus intended, instead morph into monsters who rip into each other or at the very least, are unkind. Last year at Christmas my autistic niece who ‘talks’s via her mom told me I was ‘the worst one in the family’ when it came to being hurtful and tactless. What hurt me the most was that she felt the need to say this a day after Christmas, that at every family get together the family has to sit around an offer some form of criticism. Yes, I am direct, and I tell it like it is, like my dad. The baton of ‘the worst guy’ has been passed on to me.
And then they wonder why I rather spend Christmas with 3 dogs?!
God bless the dogs.
They’re allowing me to spend Christmas with 3 creatures and a boyfriend who think I am great. Or at least not the worst.
thebearthatmoved.com 