I’m fighting with Caitlin and rejected by Yuri so today I’m feeling bad. What is “bad” ? Not loved, not approved, I guess. It’s difficult when Caitlin and I are fighting because she’s fully one half of my support system. It doesn’t happen often but I could not keep quiet.

Aunt Tammy died and all of a sudden Caitlin is having a meltdown about her family and how they relate to her. It became all about her and I called her on it. She’s like me. Can’t take criticism very gracefully.  We’re not texting. She’s is in Wilmington for the funeral but I know we’re fighting and it hurts.

Yuri hurts me by not caring, not interacting at all. Sometimes I think… really kid? But he isn’t a kid anymore. He’s an adult making his own choices. David and I had had an affair. He divorced Millie, Yuri’s mother. The divorce proceeding were acrimonious and prolonged. Yuri was not spared Millie’s bitterness and hurt. Yuri came to our house for court ordered visitation every other weekend and on certain school nights. We were a family. But when he turned 18 he said out loud in front of David and I, “I won’t have to spend the night here anymore.” And he never did. Apparently our home was not his home. At the time I wanted to strangle him. How hurtful to say that in front of his Daddy who loved him, oh so very much.

My own feelings about Yuri were and continue to be ambivalent.  I was the stepmom, the wicked stepmother at that. Millie once berated Yuri publicly for letting me tie his roller hockey skates. How do you protect a kid from that? I stayed away. David, also alienated, had to go alone to Yuri’s games and sat at a distance from the St. Timothy crowd. I rationalized that he had a mom and a dad and didn’t need me. But you get to be called a parent by doing it, by jumping into the fray. I didn’t do that.

David’s style of parenting didn’t help. I’m hands on. In the shit. David was much more passive. I couldn’t ask Yuri to do chores or make many demands of him because he wasn’t there fulltime and David didn’t think it was fair to him. It was hard to draw him in and get to know him.  I never got the impression that he wanted to be there. As an adolescent he would come home after school and disappear into his room. I didn’t know him.

We never visited him in New York. Unbelievable.

How is he now? I like him. He’s hardworking. Still has an awkward, geekiness that is just enough to be charming. Like his dad he drinks too much. He’s good with money. He’s a good person. Is he f—– up inside because of what all went on before? Undoubtedly somewhat. I really wouldn’t know. He doesn’t communicate with me beyond an occasional Fb reference. What upset me yesterday was that I messaged him about a kitten I had found. I used it to touch base. He loves cats. We had a little (very little) back and forth about the cat, after months of not communicating, then he said, “Cheerio.” Cheerio. Dismissed. Done. Fuck you.

It makes me sad. But it’s my just desserts I guess. Still going on after all these years.

What would David say to all of this. Nothing? Sigh. Not one of his strong points. He would poo-poo my observations and feelings of rejection. LOL! Oh, David!

WAIT!

I’m not done.

Back to the other one. Caitlin. She seems to think Yuri is confused and upset because I didn’t have a memorial for you. I’ve been waiting for them to come. I thought they would come. Yuri wanted to spread your ashes on the water so it would touch him wherever he was. I love that. But they don’t come. So now I will have a wreath laying ceremony. I will have Darvin take us out on the boat from Caye Caulker. You won’t be far from drinking rum punch at Fido’s, out on the reef where the water is blue green and lovely, out near the Conch Shell Inn where we had such a good time. They will be invited and have plenty of time to make arrangements but if they don’t come it will be on them.

I’m going to say this now. I have thought it but not said it to them. I guess in light of what I have told you about Yuri that I mean this statement more particularly (but not exclusively) about Caitlin. You would think that in the past two years one of them would have made the trip to check on me in person, to see how I really am. For them life went on. You weren’t a part of their day to day lives. But for me, life stopped for a long,long time.