We are now 4 weeks out from our move date. My husband and I are both in a weird place--excited and edgy. Going to the gym helps. Going out for cocktails doesn't--alcohol doesn't really take much edge off the anxiety, it just makes us both lippier, and when you're already jumpy, that can spell stupid fight over nothing that we both feel bad about the next day, which just compounds the anxiety. People tell us that if we weren't a little scared/nervous about moving, then we would really be idiots, and I believe that's true--it makes me feel better anyway.
When my father asked me how I felt about the move, I told him I was excited and nervous, and a little intimidated. He actually scolded me, telling me he doesn't believe in that kind of thinking--he doesn't allow himself to be intimidated by anything or anyone. Such a pompous ass. And a flat out liar too. His entire life is a study in, among other things, self esteem issues. It's such a nice, warm moment between parent and child when parent asks child a question, the child answers honestly, and the parent takes that sincerity and emotionally smacks child across the face with it. One of the last things he said to me is that this move could be really good for me--IF I am able to develop the right attitude, and IF I really give it a chance. He often does this whenever I have good news to share--I think he finds it difficult to be happy for others when they experience good fortune, even when it comes to his own children. He frequently manages to make me feel as if I don't deserve whatever good has happened, and that chances are I will probably fuck it up.
The majority of our family has been supportive and encouraging. I should know by now what to expect from my parents. I am not telling my mother and her husband until right before we leave because I don't want to be driven more insane than I already am. She will pick the whole thing apart, question our every decision, and be at the house every day telling me how to manage everything. I am even telling her we are selling our house, which we are not, to keep her from hounding our renter while we are gone. Like my father, she pecks at her children with constant criticism and judgment--words of love or praise are a special occasion for my father, and when they come from my mother, they are usually drug induced. They both seem perpetually disappointed in their children, as if we just never measure up. The funny thing is, if any of us kids "measured up" to our parents, we'd be alcoholics, prescription drug addicts, and suffer from depression and multiple personality disorders. And we'd beat our kids and emotionally terrorize them. So it's a good thing we're turning out to be such disappointments.
