Things got a little better this weekend. I wish I could say Don had some breakthrough or realized I wanted, no I needed to be as normal as I could be so treating me like a piece of tissue paper would not make a hell of a lot of sense. But I think he got horny because he is always horny and the man is not one I would have married had I not enjoyed him and sex because that is pretty much a lot of who he is. He’s also funny as hell and makes me laugh every day multiple times so it helps when living this life. If I didn’t laugh every day I would most assuredly put myself out of my own misery in a creative way. But at this point the funny outweighs any negative but right now things are much better. Now all we have to do is make some key investments in some things to make a huge difference in a business idea I think that did end up really blossoming in Don’s mind. See, I have felt like a failure for so many fucking years if we can figure out a way to do it together–well, that would be a huge win I think I need in my column. I thought of an idea the other week and Don really let it stew in his head and it is a really good one. And we could do a lot with it that makes more sense than most things. I am really excited by it, he seems super excited, too and I would have to kill you if I told you so I will hold off until we get one of those projects down. It is really good, I better not get killed off anytime soon.

Also, the copywriting is coming along and the handwriting is coming along, because once you haven’t done it in a while, it is really very hard to do–oh my god the hand cramps. I spend a great deal of time attached to real computers and keyboards and don’t do as much handwriting as I would hope to, but a lot of these exercises are wrote and require a full on repetition on paper over and over. I think it’s helped me work the real handwriting I have done lately. I decided to start writing letters–I send one to my grandmother weekly because she is in Arizona and how exciting could it be since she takes care of her husband and doesn’t know me? This is my father’s mother, the one I know the least. Plus I have like zero connections to any blood maternal figures anymore. So for me it’s an interesting exercise in trying to get to know her but I think…ugh. I think I waited too long in some ways to start this. It’s like I am almost dead and still could beat her to it, but when I first found them 18 years ago she would have been in a better place to communicate or want to write letters with more in them. I have been trying to just continue the practice because it is good for my hand, and it makes me feel good to try and contribute some joy to someone else. I think I will try to start sending her little trinkets or things I make since blabbling on about my crazy plan of the week or month probably makes me seem crazy, since she doesn’t really know me at all. Part of me thinks it’s fun to do, part of me hopes she doesn’t think I am nuts and part of me doesn’t care because I am just trying to reach out to touch something intangible. Eddie’s dad died and I always wanted his story and it got to the point where he was so old that it was too late. I almost feel that way with my grandmother because she’s tired you can see it in her writing and some of the lessons I could have learned, stories I could have heard, it’s just too late in some ways, sadly. I regret it–waiting, but that’s a lesson I won’t forget for the next time. And just because she can’t write back to me doesn’t mean I can’t let her know how I am, right? It’ll be a little record nobody else will have, even me, of how my brain worked for a while, maybe.

It’s been a year and a half since I had any connection to those ladies, my maternal birth side, and ultimately it’s been pretty eye-opening. I think the last communication was when I found out the origin of the gene issue which shocked the shit out of us to come from my dad’s side. I sent them an email because it was the right thing to do. Like very similarly to when I got her phone number for the first time I called right away. I emailed them right away because there were small children involved and I am not a dirt bag. Just because I get treated like I am doesn’t mean I am a terrible person at all.

That’s something that I think doesn’t need to be rehashed at this point and I think I am not the kind of person who is good for my birth mother. All I did was tell her to fix that building to rent it out and helped get the 3 units in there done but–I dunno. I of course was always there to push for the rational outcome, which if you knew Denver rent prices, was not what was happening there. But whatever. I think I kept telling her the same thing over and over and to expect any change was not anything that was going to happen because of my input. Me leaving and not being around was clearly what was needed to make any of that shit happen for her. Which is almost offensive, but also not something I have really thought about until just now. Her own kids were always better for her–I was like a strange weird novelty act that obviously had her own draw. There I think was also a release of responsibility for her in a lot of ways once I told them it wasn’t her side which was responsible for giving me the gene defect–that was the mind fuck probably for both sides, the recognition that it wasn’t them and they were going to live happy lives and I would be the one to die of something shitty, and they could smartly detach and not have any further contact because–well shit–they didn’t like me, and they didn’t like Don. They tolerated us, but I think we were both…just too us maybe to be fully embraced by that circle. Don said it more than a few times that they didn’t like me and that I wasn’t really a part of their family at all, which I knew, but it’s sometimes easier to just not, and to try your best to fit in and carve your corner. And sometimes you get thrown out with not a word spoken beyond a letter written by a lawyer.

It’s fine, it’s fine. It sucks, but–I think that we can kind of consider it an even exchange, those few years maybe in the apartment with super discounted rent. Like the letter I will pull out and edit this later, but if we took the full value of what the letter requested to stay–that it was a bill to get the fuck away and stay the fuck away. Which I also admittedly never thought about until just now like that. Come up with a money value he and I could not fulfill to ensure we knew we were not welcome and should never return. I just thought it was a we decided you caused this damage but we really didn’t with all the work we set up and yeah, what a terrible gesture, but clearly everyone there felt a fuck of a lot better when I relayed the truth of transmission, too. It was kind of like the final conclusion to a mystery nobody wanted to be a part of at all. Especially me.