FIL Processing

The recent downturn in the FIL's health is feeling like a pretty hefty blow to the family members who are part of my everyday life. I don't feel any functional bonds with any of my in-laws, so it is hard for me to know where to go with it. I am mostly trying to let it be about whoever is crying on my shoulder at the moment, but my own emotions are stirring, as well. I believe I am repressing guilt over the fact that I, strictly personal, don't care what happens to the old fool. I have had more honest bonds with store clerks than I have with him.

I was pregnant and in active therapy when I met hubs at the start of Fall semester, 1979. It was a break-up baby. . . There were strong and valid reasons I was breaking up with the fellow. Marriage was not an option. What a time to meet the love of my life. He saw me at my worst before he knew I had a best. I cannot remember what my condition was being called in my therapy network at that point in herstory, but it was enough to warn him I was a love of a dangerous kind.

Fast forward to the early years of marriage. . . There were suggestions in my therapy network that I warn the in-laws as well. I did. The FIL offered up a standard pulpit lecture on the importance of virginal icons while the MIL sat in silence, squirming through an emotional array I could not read very well. "Don't go to a hardware store for bread." Not everybody is going to understand. Leave it and move on. Insert TV montage here. 30 odd years later, I am still plying that over-simplified summary. I can't possibly know, but I'd be willing to bet dollars to wishes that he thinks I took his advice and that I have been imitating June Cleaver ever since. It is not my job to educate him.

Most of my childhood trauma happened in small towns and rural settings remote enough that no one could hear the screams or see what was happening beneath farm yard lights. The small towns and farmhouses were in states coast to coast. In these memories, I cannot tell a California farm from a Pennsylvania farm from any of the other states between. I have wondered if I should paint the back side of Norman Rockwell's canvases. . .

The MIL and FIL were part of the great migration which happened at the end of World War Two where Norman Rockwell's America was abandoned en masse. The Corparate Boom rewarded them well, but. . . More than half a century later, the FIL still sees himself as a quaint farm boy. I can see the "boy" part easily enough. I cannot vizualize him on any of the quaint farms I would care to live on. Well. . . I can see him in the family stories of running off Corporate Raiders with shotguns. . . "MOST of 'em is turncoats!"

The FIL's small town good ol' boy stories were already well-rehearsed --I suspect in front of mirrors-- by the time I met him. By the time I set up the oportunity for my therapy exercise, I had most of them memorized. I am a member of quite a few unofficial Story Teller guilds and seldom interrupt a story in progress. When I have heard a story before, I politely allow the story to continue while I allow my mind to drift. The FIL's stories took me to . . . Don't much feel like telling those trauma tells just now. Not my personal favorite stories in my personal story repertoire. . . Well. . . The set about the woman who took me in for a while going after The Suits who wanted her property have allot of potential. . . She told some great stories during target practice and was extremely creative in making her targets for practice.

Still sorting. . . Feeling fragile and confused.