June 15th, 2018

I should be sleeping but I’m annoyed.

My mother. I don’t talk about her much here. She’s still living in New York and we just recently became friendly. She’s of the type and age that to be friends with, you either have to say nothing to her or keep your conversations brief. 

In the past, we’ve been contentious with each other. Never agreed on anything and she never really believed I was adult enough on decisions or the ability to do things. Seemed it shocked her that I wrote a book.

Lately, as long as it’s hi and goodbye from texting, we’ve been good. When I started school, I didn’t tell her. I revealed my ambitions only after I started getting awards. You see, if I told her I was going back to school I wasn’t going to get anything encouraging. She’s the type that encourages only after evidence of success. Now, if you waited only for your child to succeed at things before you believed in them, well, that would be a problem.

She would bring up things in the past that I gave up on. True … I started and stopped things in her mind, like, when I was between 5 years old and age 16. I don’t think my track record with finishing projects is any worse than anyone else. I know I had trouble executing things…but always tried. Honestly, I have a lot more successfully finished things than I tell her because she just doesn’t deserve to know. If you weren’t with me when I started…

Anyway, she’s selling the family house. A place in Jamaica Queens that was first bought by my grandparents, her parents, back in the 40′s. She grew up in that house. When my grandmother died, she took over and it rotted from the inside. She sent m,e pictures recently and I couldn’t believe the way she let it fall apart. I’ll post pictures later. It was horrible.

So, she’s selling it as is. The last I spoke to her about the whole selling process was she was going to sell it, living in a small apartment and then move to Vermont to retire. I don’t even think that plan is happening because I don’t think she got the money she wanted for the place. She’s not telling me but there are holes in what she tells me that make me feel her plans aren’t happening as she would like and now she’s out of what was the family house. The place that was supposed to be passed down.

I didn’t agree to her plan of selling the place but I didn’t tell her that. With my mother, you can’t discuss things with her because she only listens to whom she deems ‘smart’. In her mind, I’m not one of them.

Her only son, by the way.

She’s the originator of those in my life that don’t listen to my advice, but more than willing to hear the SAME advise from someone else who either has money or whomever she believes in. I’m very sensitive to people like that in my life. Very resentful of people that do that to me. Discounting what I have to say in favor of same or BAD advice from others. My ex did that a lot.

So, I had to watch the sale of this place happen before my eyes. And it gets worse. She only moved five houses down to someone basement apartment and she’s giving away a lot of the furniture and paintings that were in our family …well, since the 40′s. Stuff that was legacy of our family. Things that mattered to me. In that house, I wrote my greatest stories. Had many of my first experiences.

All gone. Without even asking me what I thought or should do.

So, I should be sleeping but I want to cry. I want to yell. I want to blow up on my mother for, yet again, not listening.

The question is: did I speak?

The answer is no.

I did not.

I did not question her judgment. I did not ask her questions to challenge her decisions. I did not ask her to save anything for me because I love and miss my grandparents. Why?

Because I sacrificed the legacy for the comfortable relationship with my mother we’ve had this past year. We were not fighting. We were not angry. She genuinely cared about my academic success and I finally got my mother to love me for my accomplishments.

That’s no way to live. To only speak to your family ‘in a certain way’ in order to have a relationship with them. When it’s time to speak to them openly, you can’t. I missed an opportunity to salvage my grandparent’s things. I regret that.

You see what this journal is all about. It isn’t just about me making a highly probable shot at going to law school. It’s the regeneration of a once deflated, depressed man making global changes in his life by being aware of his failings and what needs to be changed. In order to get there, the raw unfiltered ‘who I am’ needs to be revealed, addressed and reshaped. Most of all, documented.

The documentation is for me to purge my thoughts. A therapeutic move.

But mostly for you. Someone who might be trying to dig your way out of a hole of depression and your life needs changes. Maybe even suicidal as I have been, and want to see if I can make it, so can you. Change is possible. 

I am not the same man that started this journal last year. Lord knows I am not the same man from years ago. With academia and learning the guitar (by the way, I also started ‘Fender Play’ to practice with intentions of getting ‘in class’ tutorials in a few weeks. The guitar is going to arrive next Tuesday), archery coming back again and joining this tech frat, “who am I” is a fair question. Certainly not last years guy.

That said, what did I learn from this experience with my mother?

I need to save my family home. I’m told it’s sold already. Right now is a good time to win the lottery. I’m playing first thing I can today.

Aside from that, I keep doing what I always have been doing with my life and my children. For me, making greater strives to be a better man. For them, talking to them honestly and letting them speak to me openly. No judgments. I save everything they make or give me. I have stuff they made for me since they were babies. A form of legacy items. I’m saving things of my own I will pass down to them. 

The guitar will be one of many guitars I think I’m going to buy. The bow is another. Then there are the comic books, figurines, collectibles, etc, etc. LOL.

Working on actual ‘money’.

I need a family home of my own. 

Some place they can come to and know they can get a fresh start, or recharge. A place they can always go to as comfort.

As of right now, I do not have that. My family home safety net is gone.

I will have a home that will be our family legacy. 

You can guarantee that.