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When I was about 35, I decided to start doing things because I wanted to do them, and not because Society or a mentor-type person wanted me to do them. This was about 10 years ago, 2010/2011 I'd say.
This was when I realized I wanted to live in Germany and started thinking about how to make that happen. This was when I realized I didn't want to live in a middle class suburbia hell, but I wanted to live in a city, where I could walk out my door and get a bus or train to somewhere else (work or travel), or walk down the street for groceries, rather than have to drive there.
It was a little bit later that I started considering that I might be asexual.
I've slowly come to realize that a good deal of the things I did over the last, oh, 30, 35 years, were primarily because I wanted to be a good member of society, a good exemplar of the lifestyle (I thought) I wanted, the one I'd been raised to believe was the True Dream and Goal for Americans. You know, married, good professional-type job, house with yard in suburbs, pet(s). I knew I didn't want the kids part early, but suppressed that for a while (because of societal expectations) and went back to NOPE after meeting some more outspokenly childless/free friends.
So I figured out what I wanted to do, as opposed to what would get me a good income (why I went into pharmacy), and it was something with the German language, and fiction writing. This led down the path of learning to teach, first through an online course, then through practical experience in and after grad school. I also took some time as a full-time writer (largely unsuccessfully, I must add, with the exception of getting into Viable Paradise in 2013.)
Then, it turns out, the person I married at 24, when we were both still figuring out what we wanted to do with our lives (and as far as I know, he still is), didn't think his goals in life were compatible with mine, even though he has never articulated what those goals may actually be.
So, here we are, almost 44, divorced, working as a part-time adjunct German instructor, and getting ready to move to Berlin, without any sort of idea about a job or place to live. The part of me that desires, nay, requires, stability is shrieking, but fortunately the Prozac is keeping that anxiety nicely calm. Things aren't going to fall into my lap; I have to work to make them happen. This is something I've known since childhood. So I have my checklist and have polished up a German resume and am starting the job and apartment search in earnest in the middle of March, in preparation for my scouting trip in May. I'm saving up money from every paycheck for plane tickets, deposits, fees, health insurance (since I might decide to COBRA July-September, and that's $800/mo), whatever.
And it's slowly been dawning on me why it's so fucking hard to deal with my family. Their entire mindset is so different from mine that I can't connect with them at all.
Going back to Christmas, when I was at my sister's, I asked her if she would come with me for a week to help me move, and, as a bonus, see where I'm going to live. After days of avoiding the question, she gave a very soft "no": the "I can't get out of work that long, and all my PTO goes to taking care of the kids." Because she's always been a people-pleaser, so she won't outright say no, and I would infinitely prefer a straight answer.
So, ok, fine, I can ask around my friends and see if any of them can help me move. No big deal.
Then she does the thing that childed people should never do to childless people: "I can't just leave for a week, because I have commitments." And also "I'm too old (read: mature) to sleep on a stranger's couch."
I was too surprised by this argument to realize she was insulting me until I was an hour on the road. (I hadn't made it out of NoVA yet. Fucking NoVA.) She heavily implied that I don't have commitments because I don't have children. I'm sorry, I do, in fact, have commitments: to my job, to my roller derby league, to my editors at Tor.com, to my landlord and utility companies, to my friends... Just because they aren't to a child doesn't make them less valid.
And the second half? I'm turning 44 in 40 days or so, and I've slept on semi-stranger's couches and in their guest rooms a lot over the last couple years. I guess this makes me immature? Or something? I don't fuckin know.
Oh, I almost forgot: she asked "when do you like kids?" and expressed surprise that I would invite her and her family to visit me, because I'm an evul child hater. I get very tired of needy kids very quickly, so when they can entertain themselves and not interrupt every 30 seconds. When they understand boundaries. So, like 10 or so?
Never do this, friends with kids.
But she has fully embraced the middle-class-aspiring-bourgeois lifestyle, whether because she actually wants it, or because she hasn't actually sat down and considered whether it makes her happy or if she's just brainwashed. They buy so much stuff for the kids, so many collectibles and knick knacks, blah blah blah, and she's always worrying about paying for house repairs. She "has to" cook dinner when she gets home from work, and she "can't" do meal prep on the weekend because "that's when they relax." That's a lifestyle choice, my dude. You could relax more during the week as well, and not just save up your relaxing for the weekend, if you had more time in the evenings after work that aren't spent cooking (and keeping your 5-year-old up until 10 pm because dinner isn't ready until 9.)
When I'm around my mom and my sister, I don't know how to act. I can't be myself, because they don't understand it. (They are Str8 People.) I have to pretend to be someone I'm not, or at a minimum not talk about anything that interests me, because a) they don't get the reference or b) they don't care. Yet I had to listen to my sister tell a story about a coworker's romance dramz over dinner for a good 20 minutes. University office politics are really uninteresting to people outside academia.
They aren't intellectually curious. This isn't to say they're unintelligent, just that they have no comprehension of what academic research (my interests) is, or why anyone would want to do it. I try telling them about my thesis or something, breaking down why it's cool and how XYZ, and they don't understand and get bored. Which, naturally, translates into "they aren't interested in me or in knowing who I am."
And. I worked for a good 10 years, lost a marriage, got 2 master's degrees, all that shit up above, in order to figure out who I am and what I want from my life. And this isn't interesting to them.
But also, I can't talk about things I'm interested in without getting the "I'm listening politely but wish you would stop" body language.
It's frustrating, and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to interact with my family. I mean, I ask them polite questions about what they're doing and how they are, etc, but there is no real two-way communication. Their house is set up in a way that doesn't facilitate communication or interaction or communality. It's a 5-BR split level. Upstairs are 3 bedrooms, the kitchen, and the dining room. Downstairs are 2 bedrooms, the laundry room and a living room. The only place to sit comfortably is in the living room, which is organized basically facing the TV.
Corollary to my sister's "I have commitments/this is my life now" is this: she has subsumed herself to her child. Yes, I understand that parenting requires sacrifice, the kids are more important, etc, but that doesn't mean you have to suppress your entire self and desires. You can still find ways to do things you want to do without neglecting your child.
So. When I'm home, all my years of asserting myself and my identity are worth nothing, because my identity isn't important to them.
Found family has always been narrative catnip for me, and it's apparently a favorite trope of queer people. The more I think about it, the more that connection makes sense.
This was when I realized I wanted to live in Germany and started thinking about how to make that happen. This was when I realized I didn't want to live in a middle class suburbia hell, but I wanted to live in a city, where I could walk out my door and get a bus or train to somewhere else (work or travel), or walk down the street for groceries, rather than have to drive there.
It was a little bit later that I started considering that I might be asexual.
I've slowly come to realize that a good deal of the things I did over the last, oh, 30, 35 years, were primarily because I wanted to be a good member of society, a good exemplar of the lifestyle (I thought) I wanted, the one I'd been raised to believe was the True Dream and Goal for Americans. You know, married, good professional-type job, house with yard in suburbs, pet(s). I knew I didn't want the kids part early, but suppressed that for a while (because of societal expectations) and went back to NOPE after meeting some more outspokenly childless/free friends.
So I figured out what I wanted to do, as opposed to what would get me a good income (why I went into pharmacy), and it was something with the German language, and fiction writing. This led down the path of learning to teach, first through an online course, then through practical experience in and after grad school. I also took some time as a full-time writer (largely unsuccessfully, I must add, with the exception of getting into Viable Paradise in 2013.)
Then, it turns out, the person I married at 24, when we were both still figuring out what we wanted to do with our lives (and as far as I know, he still is), didn't think his goals in life were compatible with mine, even though he has never articulated what those goals may actually be.
So, here we are, almost 44, divorced, working as a part-time adjunct German instructor, and getting ready to move to Berlin, without any sort of idea about a job or place to live. The part of me that desires, nay, requires, stability is shrieking, but fortunately the Prozac is keeping that anxiety nicely calm. Things aren't going to fall into my lap; I have to work to make them happen. This is something I've known since childhood. So I have my checklist and have polished up a German resume and am starting the job and apartment search in earnest in the middle of March, in preparation for my scouting trip in May. I'm saving up money from every paycheck for plane tickets, deposits, fees, health insurance (since I might decide to COBRA July-September, and that's $800/mo), whatever.
And it's slowly been dawning on me why it's so fucking hard to deal with my family. Their entire mindset is so different from mine that I can't connect with them at all.
Going back to Christmas, when I was at my sister's, I asked her if she would come with me for a week to help me move, and, as a bonus, see where I'm going to live. After days of avoiding the question, she gave a very soft "no": the "I can't get out of work that long, and all my PTO goes to taking care of the kids." Because she's always been a people-pleaser, so she won't outright say no, and I would infinitely prefer a straight answer.
So, ok, fine, I can ask around my friends and see if any of them can help me move. No big deal.
Then she does the thing that childed people should never do to childless people: "I can't just leave for a week, because I have commitments." And also "I'm too old (read: mature) to sleep on a stranger's couch."
I was too surprised by this argument to realize she was insulting me until I was an hour on the road. (I hadn't made it out of NoVA yet. Fucking NoVA.) She heavily implied that I don't have commitments because I don't have children. I'm sorry, I do, in fact, have commitments: to my job, to my roller derby league, to my editors at Tor.com, to my landlord and utility companies, to my friends... Just because they aren't to a child doesn't make them less valid.
And the second half? I'm turning 44 in 40 days or so, and I've slept on semi-stranger's couches and in their guest rooms a lot over the last couple years. I guess this makes me immature? Or something? I don't fuckin know.
Oh, I almost forgot: she asked "when do you like kids?" and expressed surprise that I would invite her and her family to visit me, because I'm an evul child hater. I get very tired of needy kids very quickly, so when they can entertain themselves and not interrupt every 30 seconds. When they understand boundaries. So, like 10 or so?
Never do this, friends with kids.
But she has fully embraced the middle-class-aspiring-bourgeois lifestyle, whether because she actually wants it, or because she hasn't actually sat down and considered whether it makes her happy or if she's just brainwashed. They buy so much stuff for the kids, so many collectibles and knick knacks, blah blah blah, and she's always worrying about paying for house repairs. She "has to" cook dinner when she gets home from work, and she "can't" do meal prep on the weekend because "that's when they relax." That's a lifestyle choice, my dude. You could relax more during the week as well, and not just save up your relaxing for the weekend, if you had more time in the evenings after work that aren't spent cooking (and keeping your 5-year-old up until 10 pm because dinner isn't ready until 9.)
When I'm around my mom and my sister, I don't know how to act. I can't be myself, because they don't understand it. (They are Str8 People.) I have to pretend to be someone I'm not, or at a minimum not talk about anything that interests me, because a) they don't get the reference or b) they don't care. Yet I had to listen to my sister tell a story about a coworker's romance dramz over dinner for a good 20 minutes. University office politics are really uninteresting to people outside academia.
They aren't intellectually curious. This isn't to say they're unintelligent, just that they have no comprehension of what academic research (my interests) is, or why anyone would want to do it. I try telling them about my thesis or something, breaking down why it's cool and how XYZ, and they don't understand and get bored. Which, naturally, translates into "they aren't interested in me or in knowing who I am."
And. I worked for a good 10 years, lost a marriage, got 2 master's degrees, all that shit up above, in order to figure out who I am and what I want from my life. And this isn't interesting to them.
But also, I can't talk about things I'm interested in without getting the "I'm listening politely but wish you would stop" body language.
It's frustrating, and I don't know what to do about it. I don't know how to interact with my family. I mean, I ask them polite questions about what they're doing and how they are, etc, but there is no real two-way communication. Their house is set up in a way that doesn't facilitate communication or interaction or communality. It's a 5-BR split level. Upstairs are 3 bedrooms, the kitchen, and the dining room. Downstairs are 2 bedrooms, the laundry room and a living room. The only place to sit comfortably is in the living room, which is organized basically facing the TV.
Corollary to my sister's "I have commitments/this is my life now" is this: she has subsumed herself to her child. Yes, I understand that parenting requires sacrifice, the kids are more important, etc, but that doesn't mean you have to suppress your entire self and desires. You can still find ways to do things you want to do without neglecting your child.
So. When I'm home, all my years of asserting myself and my identity are worth nothing, because my identity isn't important to them.
Found family has always been narrative catnip for me, and it's apparently a favorite trope of queer people. The more I think about it, the more that connection makes sense.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-03 04:46 am (UTC)From:I am the asexual, childfree offspring of Very Traditional Parents (TM) who Don't Get It (TM), who censors her interests and her activities when speaking to family members and on a basic level just doesn't have any interest in the things they want or enjoy.
I once told my mother that I didn't want children, and her reply was, "When you say that, you're breaking my heart." That was pretty much the point at which I decided that my parents weren't going to be granted further confidences. I mean, what else do you say to a reply that boils down to Sharing your feelings and choices with me is only acceptable if I approve of them; if I disapprove, I'll use them to hurt you by insisting you choose between me and your own life ?
Your comment about found-family narratives is definitely true for me. Though even more so, perhaps, than found-family, I find that discarded-family is narrative catnip for me: seeing characters leave behind family bonds without regret/punishment is innately satisfying. Probably because it's a sort of wish fulfillment fantasy, a power narrative, for people who are 'closeted' in any sense from family members? When you're hiding your inner self and cosplaying normal to maintain a relationship, it's thrilling to imagine choosing the opposite course instead.
I wish you the best of luck in your German endeavours! And may your sister come to recognise her complete lack of perspective, and respect, and regret it.
no subject
Date: 2020-02-03 02:14 pm (UTC)From:no subject
Date: 2020-02-15 04:33 pm (UTC)From: