Today I would like to avoid thinking too much about the day. However, the anticipation of this day is worse than the actual day. It is really just another day. I haven't decided what to do with the rest of it yet. I decided to come here and write a little update on thoughts on estrangement.

I found a weird and fascinating book recently. I've included it on the References page. Bertha Alyce: Mother exPosed by Gay Block. I've written a review of it there that you might like to read. It would be redundant to include the review here in the blog again. It's a book of photographs and text about a difficult mother/daughter relationship. After reading it, I wondered if maybe estrangement by refusing contact with a relative might be a kinder gentler form of estrangement compared to some other avenues ... like photographing your mother nude and publishing a book after she died? But maybe that's just me?

You may have noticed that now there are links on this site so that books listed on estrangements.com can be purchased directly from Amazon. I hope that this doesn't turn anyone off from visiting estrangements.com due to some cynical thought that I might be making money from these links. It is true that as an Amazon Associate I may (sometimes but not always) make a small commission if you purchase a book directly from these links. So far my income as an Associate has been 6¢.

I decided to try being an Amazon Associate out of curiosity, to see if it were possible to defray any of the expenses of the site through the links since I have books listed here. It just seems so convenient and easy to provide the links. I am the one who pays for the site. If you read my reviews, you can get a clue that I am not being influenced by potential profit when I write reviews of the books that I've read and included on the references page. I write what I really think. I would prefer that if you order a book that it meets your needs. I don't need 6¢ so badly that I would give a positive review to a book that I didn't really feel positive about. I just wanted to mention that in case it occurred to you and you were concerned about any possible motive on my part to be less than truthful about my opinions.

About today, Mother's Day, I pondered whether to send my mother flowers. You might have a hard time understanding why this is hard for me. Why not just send flowers? Well, if I send flowers, I am sending a message that the door may be open and the door is not open. I don't think that it's kind to send flowers with a card enclosed that says, "By the way, I am STILL not talking to you. Don't call or write. Please." I would like to send flowers at the same time that I fear sending flowers. I feel badly for my mother yet I know that there is no way to ease her pain. "Why?" you ask.

If you are a mom who hasn't heard from your daughter, you know that hearing from her would ease your pain. Hearing from my daughter would ease my pain. But there is no way to ease my mother's pain because she is unhappy no matter what the nature of our relationship. She is unhappy if we are talking. She is unhappy if we aren't talking. I am unhappy that she is always unhappy ... particularly because if we are talking, she tends to take out her unhappiness on whoever is in a speaking relationship with her.

I heard of a book on something called Emotional Claustrophobia. Something about those words ring a bell with me. I don't know if I really need to read another book. I'm not too tempted to read another self help book right now. I've read quite a few. But those words, emotional claustrophobia, describe how I feel about certain relationships, particularly the one with my mother. I fear being overwhelmed. Overtaken. I've had dreams where I am in a physical struggle with my mother and she is trying to subdue me. I wrote a poem years ago about the octopus mother .... she of many arms flailing to encase me, to get a bite of me, to get a piece of me. I fear allowing my mother into my life. I don't trust her and don't want her back in. Yet I feel sorry for her and hate feeling as though I contribute to her pain. It makes me feel as though I am not such a nice person. My husband assures me that this is not true.

What is much nicer to think about are all those mothers and daughters who do have friendly warm loving relationships and who can celebrate today without all this angst, pain, analysis, baggage, guilt, grief, sadness. How fortunate they are! I wish them all a very Happy Mother's Day!

September 19, 2004 Sunday: Kahlil Gibran, The Nurture Assumption, & 40 Year High School Reunions

Yesterday I bought a second copy of a book that I own. The book is The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out The Way That They Do by Judith Rich Harris. Buying another copy was easier than finding the one that is here somewhere. I am not a very organized person. This doesn't matter so much when memory works well but my memory doesn't work as well as it once did.

I bought the second copy because when I opened it to reread some of it, I read a quote from Kahlil Gibran inside and wanted to include the quote here ... without having to go on a hunt for my hardcover copy. Fortunately, this duplicate only cost me 50¢ at the local library book sale.

Here is the Gibran quote:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you.
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls.
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

A great statement on being a parent. We have a responsibility but that responsibility is limited. Sometimes I need to be reminded of that since I am the sort that blames everything on myself.

That book, The Nurture Assumption, is a good one to read if you are interested in theories on how people turn out the way that they do. I used to be the kind of person who thought that most serious emotional problems were caused by children's having suffered emotional and/or physical abuse by their parents. If an adult accused a parent of having contributed to their psychological problems, I was the sort who believed them and agreed with them 99.9% of the time. In cases where the person had an incontestably excellent childhood, I would have attributed any dysfunction in adulthood to some physical cause such as an injury to their brain or a genetic vulnerability to a personality disorder.

Judy Rich Harris, author of The Nurture Assumption, proposes that there is another powerful influence on the development of our personalities that has been given too little credit. That influence is the power of the group on the individual. I read this book a few years ago. Harris makes good points. She changed my point of view on how much responsibility that parents bear for the way that their kids turn out in the long run.

My high school reunion is coming up in October. This would be a 40th reunion held for the class. I went to one reunion back in 1974 ...or was it 79? It might have been either. Already classmates had changed so much by that reunion that I recognized very few of them. This time I am wondering if it will be like being in a room full of strangers? The reunion itself is short, only four hours long. What a brief time to catch up on 40 years?

These are some of the very people, according to The Nurture Assumption, who may have helped me be who I am! The people I can blame outside of my parents, my genetics, and the rest of society? Only four hours? So much work, so little time! Interestingly since I was notified about the reunion (through the internet where I was tracked down ... appropriately enough) I have had some feelings of being that shy reserved quirky nerdy skinny (I wish!) high school kid I once was. By the time that I get to that reunion, I may have regressed all the way back to being a fearful 18 year old instead of an angst ridden age-ist aging baby boomer!

Maybe it's their fault that I am estranged today from my mother and my daughter? The fault is all theirs? In that case maybe they'll know how to end the estrangements and make us all happy and psychologically healthy and we'll all ride off into the American sunset eating apple pie with Lassie barking by our sides? I hope you recognize that I am saying this all with tongue parked firmly in my cheek. This is the most amusing thought that I have had today ... that my high school classmates are responsible for the development of my personality and possibly the misfortunes in my life. How very amusing!

In turn I guess since I was also part of someone else's group, I must be responsible too for how others turned out! I wonder who would have considered my presence in their life to be such a powerful influence? I wonder if anyone ... besides my ex-husband who was also a member of that class ... went to a therapist because of me? I wonder if one of our class's beautiful cheerleaders who were the epitome of popularity considered my serious approach to studies and my reserved manner an inspiration in their life? Somehow ... I doubt it. But then .... as has been said elsewhere ... stranger things have happened!

Along with thinking about going to this reunion, I also gave some thought to contacting my daughter to get together for lunch. The reunion is in the city where she lives. I don't have even 1% hope that this will happen because she has not responded to anything that I've sent her in 9 years. Hoping opens up my heart to hurting. I fear hope. However, I decided to send her an email anyway to ask her if she'd like to meet me for lunch. I sent the email. Several days ago. No response yet. Not surprised. I would be surprised to get a response. I did keep the invitation very simple. I was not wordy like I can be. I just told her that I would be there and I invited her for lunch and asked her to let me know one way or the other.

I know from past experience how much pain I feel when I get no response. Years ago I stopped sending letters. Occasionally I've sent a card. Last year I sent flowers on her birthday. I try a little but not too much so that I protect myself from the pain. I remember when we were first estranged I thought of sending her a postcard every single day of the year so that I would never be out of her mind and she would eventually respond. I talked myself out of that. I thought it would be considered harrassment rather than a loving gesture. Also I expected that a strategy like that would make me ill. Maybe even considering it was a symptom of illness? If someone doesn't want to talk to me, then they're entitled to that decision. I decided to respect her decision and I still do respect it. I don't know what she thinks of my lack of pursuit of her ... whether she thinks it's a good or bad thing. From my experience of her prior to her decision, I doubt that it matters what I do .... from her perspective whatever I do is the wrong thing to do. So I let her go ... until she decides on her own that she wants to talk to me.

Saturday, September 25, 2005
The Mistakes of '95 and Offering an Apology Again.

I've sent a second email to my daughter titled "Apology sincerely offered". I hoped that titling it that way might enhance the chances of her reading the email and not deleting it instantly on seeing my email address in the "From" box. While I've apologized in years past in other emails & in paper letters, I'm not convinced that my apologies registered with her. Possibly I didn't word the apologies in a way in which there could be no misinterpretation. Maybe I said something that made her angrier even though I had no intention of doing that. If I were to give someone advice about writing to anyone who is not talking to them, I would tell them to keep it short and simple. Don't provide opportunities for more misinterpretation and misunderstandings. When someone is angry, they are at their best as far as finding fault. Say as little as possible, even if you feel in your heart that you are right, that they are wrong, and that they are possibly nuts. Unless you really don't want them to talk to you again. Then go on and on and on and on. I've been there and done that.

Yesterday I reread the email correspondence that went on between me and my daughter back in 1995. From this perspective of 9 years later, I can see that there was a lot of miscommunication and misunderstanding in those emails on both sides. I can see that she was not willing to give me the benefit of the doubt on anything and I was easily insulted. Reading her emails even made me feel angry all over again. I wondered why I even miss her! But I do miss her, even if we are not on the same wavelength, have little in common, and no longer have much that we are willing to talk about. As a parent I was guilty of thinking that I knew her well when I didn't. She is a very different person than the daughter I thought I knew. She is admirable and smart in many ways but she is very different than who I thought she was.

I'll provide just one example. This is nothing that is very important but it illustrates how I didn't know her well. When she first went to college she played a musical instrument and majored in music. She never completed her studies in that subject but I had assumed that she still loved to play and that she liked classical music as I'd never heard her play any other kind of music. I assumed that she would like serious sorts of movies and performances of dance. I like those kinds of things. Well, it turns out that she likes entertaining movies that aren't particularly thought provoking, sports and alternative rock. I had no idea! And the list goes on ...

However, rereading the old emails that lead us to this estrangement, I recognized that I'd have done better to say so much less than I did. Every word that I typed was one more nail in our Relationship's Coffin. It doesn't matter if I made sense or not. She wasn't able to read any sense in it. She read between every line, between every word, between every letter. Whatever it was that I wanted to say was not what she was able to hear. I said way more than was necessary.

At the time I took that correspondence as an "opportunity" for us both to air our feelings and thoughts with each other. We'd never done that before. We had had communications previously where nothing important was every talked about. I wrote and wrote and wrote. I responded to each point that she made ... at length. I misunderstood some things and overreacted myself. She did the same thing. She refused to believe that she misinterpreted anything that I had done or said.

For an example of that, she was convinced that on a visit to me two years earlier with her husband, I had not wanted her here. This was a 100% misinterpretation. I was so excited to have her visiting me for the first time in years. But she believed that they were not welcome and her husband reinforced this belief. He told her that he felt and thought the same thing. Consequently, she believed that it was true! They left two days earlier than they had said they would. I was so upset when they left that I was ill for three days. At the time they never told me of this view that they had. I learned of it 2 years after the visit for the first time in 1995. Nothing that I could say would convince her that they were welcome and that I had wanted them to stay for the full time. Anything that I said regarding her husband, no matter that I didn't mean it in a negative manner, she took as meaning that I thought he was a bad person. I said that he had had a cold during the visit and that I wished he would take care of the cold instead of insisting on going out and then feeling miserable. My statement was taken as being a terrible criticism of him.

The correspondence went downhill as I tried to defend myself and as I got angry in return at being misunderstood. I was the one who made the first suggestion of our taking time off from each other. I suggested that she think of me as an aunt for a time instead of a mother. I was at a loss at how to communicate with my daughter. I thought maybe some time off from each other would give us each a different perspective. I had in mind about 6 months. Later she wrote to me to tell me that I wasn't worth time, effort or even the ink it took to write to me and that she wanted nothing further to do with me. The final straw for her was when I suggested that we go for joint therapy together. She took it as meaning that I thought there was something wrong with her. Her father and stepmother had gone to joint therapy with her and it has not been a success apparently. So my suggestion reminded her of their attempt to go to therapy together. My suggestion was taken as an insult. She cut me off at that point 9 years ago and has refused to talk with me since then. Ironically she is in closer contact with her father and stepmother now even though she had such negative feelings about what she thought they had put her through.

Yesterday, regardless of my own feelings on rereading the correspondence of 9 years ago, I sent the email with an apology, a simple apology, and another request to meet for lunch with no need to discuss anything. I said that I wanted to reconnect. I said that I would respect her decision if she wouldn't meet and end the estrangement. I think that there is about a 1% chance of her responding at all. Maybe less than that.

Mistakes are never recognized as mistakes until they've already been done. If I were to offer advice to anyone in an argument where they don't want it to end in an estrangement, I'd offer the following:

1. Keep written communications simple. Don't expound.
2. Don't respond instantly. Give yourself time to cool off (and also the other person) and think about your response.
3. Don't make being right the only or the highest priority if the highest priority is that you want to keep being in a relationship.
4. Give the other person the freedom to be irrational sometimes. Just figure out what you can ignore and then ignore it.
5. Don't swear ... even if the other person does. Be polite and civil ... no matter what!
6. Use humor appropriately ... but carefully. It can be misinterpreted as sarcasm or as being dismissive of something that the other person thinks is important.
7. Repeating #1, keep it simple ... very short and simple.
8. Talk about important things in person if at all possible. Written communications allow imaginations to go wild in reading between lines. Phones are too easily hung up.

Chances are that if you are reading this blog it is already too late and the damage was done. There is also a chance that even if you or I had done everything just right that the estrangement may have occurred anyway. So don't be too hard on yourself and I'll try not to be too hard on myself (a tough job as I'm my own toughest critic ... if I don't count my daughter!)

September 29, 2004 Wednesday

Depression, Humor, Garrison Keillor, Writing Books

Clinical depression is a something that dogs me. I took medication for it for over 4 years beginning shortly before the estrangement with my daughter began. I haven't taken it for a few years because of the side effect of somnolence that made being productive very difficult. However, without medication I go in and out of depression every few weeks .... or sometimes every few hours or days. It hasn't been as bad as it was when I first was prescribed medication but sometimes my mood is almost as bad as then.

I was watching fireworks last Sunday night and was aware that I was having a hard time enjoying them. That's what depression is. The inability to appreciate a good time, the inability to appreciate that the sun is shining and that things overall are good. I can be aware of the good things in life but not able to enjoy them. Some days are good; some days terrible. When I think about estrangement a lot, as I have been since deciding to go to my home town and my high school reunion and when I try to contact my daughter with little expectation of response, I have more bad days.

If I were to give advice to someone else in my shoes, I'd be telling them to go for medication. It can make such a world of difference. I remember how being on medication silences all that extra thinking and obsessing that goes on in my head. I enjoyed that internal peace. Living without depression was wonderful! If I could take the medication and not have the side effects, I would do it. Being productive is important to me. More important than being at peace. So I choose to forge on and get things done while fighting depression.

They say that loss is often a trigger for depression. How true that is!

I find it odd that in the midst of feeling depressed, my sense of humor survives. Sometimes I can be very funny while in the midst of the blackest despair. I don't know why this is. Maybe a survival trait? I can cheer myself up sometimes if something particulary funny occurs to me and I say it and make myself and/or someone else laugh.

Speaking of laughter, Garrison Keillor is someone whose radio performances I've enjoyed so much. I consider him to be a genius of wit and humor and writing. A very entertaining guy!

Keillor wrote ... or maybe still writes? .... an advice column for Salon.com under the name of Mr. Blue. A few years ago ... around 2000 .... I was a regular reader of Salon.com and saw his column which was mostly advice to the lovelorn. I'd never written to an advice columnist in my life, having taken the more expensive route of therapists or the cheap but effective route of 12 step groups. But the curious scientific part of me was intrigued by Keillor/Blue as the advice giver. And I had a serious problem ... the estrangement with my daughter ... that I could present to him. What would the genius/writer/columnist/radio personality advise? So I wrote to Mr. Blue, outlining the estrangement, telling him that I was thinking of writing a book on estrangements, asking him his advice.

Mr. Blue responded. I wish I could quote you from the column. I know I printed out his response but I can't find it anywhere. I looked and looked and looked for it to quote it but I can't find it. If I ever do find it, I will put it here. For now I will make do with my imperfect memory of the response.

Mr. Blue/Keillor told me that I wasn't really estranged, that my style was combative, and that I shouldn't write a book. It sounded to me like, "Silly woman! Get your head on straight! Your daughter isn't really not talking to you but you have a combative style and that is the problem and, for heaven's sake, don't write a book .... that would be just .... silly!"

My response to this in email was ... combative! I informed Mr. Keillor/Blue that he must have issues with his mother and/or his ex-wife and that I had sent in my question to him as an experiment in asking a columnist anything and he had failed the test! Thereby confirming for him his point about my combativeness! Remembering that makes me smile a bit.

However, I think he was right about not writing a book. A book is so permanent. You can't add anything to it once it's written. All mistakes and personal foibles are there for as long as the book survives with no ability to edit the permanently printed result. (Not that I think that an online writer should try to change their personal foibles by deletion but it's nice to be able speak of them at a later time from a different perspective which is something that can't be done in a published book. Note that I added in this additional thought on Sept. 30.) No opportunity in a published book to add further thoughts. No opportunity to meditate on what you've written and change your mind and let anyone know. No opportunity to add what you learn in the future without putting out another edition. So much hassle with the whole publishing industry just to get a book published. Some day it ends up as a remainder and sinks into that vast sea of books that were published years ago and are now on a shelf in a dusty used book store.

Writing online is different from a book because it is a process rather than finished product. It's an ongoing creation. It grows. The reader may communicate with the writer along the way and the writer can respond. The writer doesn't have to write, "The End" until the day or year comes when he or she runs out of things to say. It isn't a money making enterprise but then neither are books for the most part with the exception of best selling novels. I know many people who have written books on topics on which they have expertise but none of them have ever said that they made money from them. In my case making money hasn't been my goal. My goal is to share my experience and my research so that I might help someone else. Writing a book would have limited me to what I knew at a point in time instead of being able to share what I learn and feel over a long time. Mr. Blue was right about not writing a book.

About my being combative .... well, Mr. Blue .... I apologize for suggesting that you have issues with your mother and ex-wife. I had no right to suggest that. I don't know you. You may be best friends with all the women in your life, past and present. You may be the most emotionally healthy person in the world! I know that I enjoy listening to your radio programs, despite my irritation at your dismissive response and at being called combative. I still consider you to be a creative genius although I confess that I considered not listening to your programs any more. But you are too funny, too creative, and too good at telling a story. But I don't agree that my having or not having a combative style was the problem with my daughter. I would have done better to say less. I'm sure of that. At the time my daughter would have preferred that I say nothing ... which is what I wasn't willing to do any more. At the time I wrote to you as Mr. Blue I wondered if you would have called Bette Davis and Katherine Hepburn combative? I've always admired both of those women. If they are combative, maybe being called combative is a compliment?

Writing to Mr. Blue was my foray into writing an advice columnist. I did it because it was Garrison Keillor and I wanted to see what he would say. The man is much smarter than I am. I know that. But he is an entertainer and a good one. He approaches being an advice columnist in the same way that he does his radio shows ... he entertains. He uses common sense but he doesn't have the inside track on solving people's personal problems any more than Dear Abby did. That was the first and only time I've ever written an advice columnist. I'll never do that again. Sometimes we really do get what we pay for!

September 30, 2004 Thursday: Mr. Blue's Original Response Located!

I found my question to Mr. Blue and his response on the Salon.com site in the archives for Mr. Blue. Garrison Keillor no longer writes the Mr. Blue column since his heart surgery in 2001.

Here is my original question and Mr. Blue's reply on August 17, 1999 on Salon.com:

Dear Mr. Blue,

I am divorced from my husband, who has not spoken to me for 15 years, and now I am losing my daughter, our only child. It breaks my heart. Four years ago, I got upset about her taking me for granted, and she went on the offensive, accusing me of not wanting to see her (untrue), and made a number of other accusations and criticisms, most of which were incredibly petty. When I suggested that we go for joint counseling (I was at a loss to know where her anger was coming from) she told me that writing to me was a "waste of ink" and that she never wanted to have anything more to do with me. She took the suggestion of therapy as being an insulting suggestion that there was something wrong with her. I have been writing down my thoughts and feelings about this, thinking I might publish it some day. I never thought this would happen to us; but I believe that she enjoyed rejecting me. I have not tried to communicate with her for some time. My previous efforts made me sick at heart and body.

Do you recommend learning acceptance and waiting for her to figure out her own stuff, or would you have another suggestion? I still love her but can't say that I like her a whole lot anymore. I didn't deserve this.

Rejected Mom

Dear Rejected,

This is a grievous story and I am sorry for your loss of the adult friendship of a child. But your combative tone makes me think that you have blundered into this situation and antagonized your daughter on your own steam. You say this started back when you got upset about her taking you for granted? Good Lord, madame, that is a poor pretext for a fight with your only child, I must say. God knows, it's human enough to get upset, but there comes a point when you simply must accept your children as they are, stop prodding and pushing and punishing them, and learn to enjoy their company. You weren't rejected: You simply got into a fight you had no business fighting, and you wound up the loser. It's a sad fact that our power to anger and alienate others is so immense and our power to reconcile is so pitifully small. The lesson is: Be slow to anger. Don't be right every time you have a chance to. And don't go off writing a book about this as a further exercise in self-justification. If you need to write something, try writing an apology.

Well, Mr. Blue, it's been a total of 9 years now and if I haven't been rejected, I don't know what I've been. Rereading my original question, I don't see my combativeness but maybe I have a blind spot. Sure I can be combative. I just don't see it in my question. I do see defensiveness. I felt defensive. I was afraid of being judged. I've always felt guilty about expecting more from my daughter in a relationship than she gave and for bringing it up to her in 1995 in the context of asking her to remember my birthday. Rereading Mr. Blue's smug response, I see that he was happy to judge me.

His point that we must accept our children as they are is a valid one. I thought I had. I had thought my daughter was quite different from who she turned out to be. Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa! I had been in denial up to then. If I had known her better, I would have proceeded differently. If our estrangement ever ends, I intend to expect a lot less and not to try as hard as I once did. I wouldn't expect to be able to talk about anything. I wasn't known for prodding, pushing or punishing my daughter. I had prided myself on encouraging her to do and be whomever she wanted to be. I had absolutely enjoyed her company.

The book that I had thought of writing would not have been about self justification. It would have been a memoir about the experience of estrangement. I don't have anything to feel self justification about. I had been saving Mr. Blue's response to include in that never to be published book. Since I won't be publishing that book, it's time to include it in here. It's an example of the kind of response that people get sometimes when they talk with others about being estranged. The kind of response that people would never give if you told them that your child had died. The kind of response that an otherwise intelligent person can give. The kind of response that reinforces all the self recriminations that a person might feel when their children won't talk to them no matter what they do. Self justification? Try self recrimination, Mr. Blue!

I really hate being called, "Madame". "Good Lord, madame." I am not the madame sort. I don't feel madame-like. I hate his response. It presumes so much when he knows so little. I find his response to me to be ... combative and smug as well as presumptuous. I think he should stick to his Prairie Home Companion job and leave the advice giving column to the Dear Abby's and the professional therapists of the world. Has Garrison Keillor experienced the pain of losing a relationship with a child or even worse lost a child? I hope not. I don't know much about his life. I have a hard time imagining that someone could respond that way who had lost their relationship with a child.

I had hoped that with all his intelligence Mr. Blue had that godlike wisdom that I wished someone had ... the wisdom of how to get someone to talk to you who won't talk to you. The wisdom of how to repair a broken bond. I wasn't looking for someone to tell me that either of us were right or wrong. Good lord, sir, how presumptuous can you get?

However, horrific as it is to imagine, maybe I could have responded in that same presumptuous smug way to someone else who was estranged from their child prior to having experienced estrangement myself! Because I once thought of my relationship with my daughter in a very different way and never expected it to end. I once was confident of her love and felt badly for the people who had the misfortune to have conflicts with their children. I felt a little smug about my conflictfree relationship with my daughter. I once was not all that different in my viewpoints from Mr. Blue. Although I never would have addressed anyone by saying, "Good Lord, madame..."

Wednesday, October 6, 2004 FOUR DAYS AND COUNTING!

No response yet to my email invitation and apology to my daughter. Maybe she considers it to be too little too late. Maybe she hasn't read them. Maybe she deleted them on sight. Maybe she's determined never to speak to me again and nothing makes any difference.

My high school reunion is in four days. I've gotten over the depression that struck right after sending the emails and expecting to get no reply. I've been busy with art. Busy with volunteer activities. Busy with life. I've been having a good time. I feel productive. For me being productive is important. I've been productive ... if not always for myself personally, then for others. I've been productive on both counts.

In my previous 2 entries I talked about Garrison Keillor/Mr. Blue's advice to me in 1999. Since I wrote those, I looked to see what I could find on Garrison Keillor. While I've listened to his radio shows for years and I do own one of his books, I haven't read anything about him. I never took the time to read a book of his that I own. I tried a couple of times but couldn't get into it. I fell asleep trying to read it. Of course, I've felt guilty about not reading it.

Online .... amazing what you can learn online these days!... I learned that Garrison Keillor's daughter was born in 1998. She is his first daughter. He is now 62. He has a son who was born in 1969. His son is 3 years younger than my daughter. His son works for him. Garrison Keillor has been married 3 times and was estranged for a time from the city of St. Paul, Minnesota but they have since made up.

I learned that Garrison Keillor was raised in a conservative religious family that belonged to the Plymouth Brethren. I know more about Brethren in general than I know about Garrison Keillor. I know that they are truly very conservative. That their beliefs about how to live a life would have been very different from that of a popular writer/entertainer who makes his living creating radio shows and books. I read that he suffered from shyness although that is hard for me to believe as I have struggled mightily with shyness and fears throughout my life and I can't imagine how a truly shy person could have lived a Garrison Keillor sort of life! But this may be due to a shortage of imagination on my part. If he is a Shy Person, then he deserves credit for overcoming his Shy Side and forging on with life.

Why am I so interested in Garrison Keillor? After all this is a site about estrangement, not the personalities of those who offend me! (I type these sentences with a smile by the way, not a frown.) I am giving my temporary obsession with Keillor some thought. The answer is, of course, that I want to understand why Mr. Blue responded to me as he had. This is a writer and entertainer who I respect and admire. His opinion mattered to me. I had written back to him saying that he must have issues with his mother and ex-wife. I may have been more accurate than I knew.

Garrison Keillor came from a conservative religious family. In 1998 he had a daughter whom he adores. His articles about his daughter make his adoration clear. As a parent and as a person he is an advocate of people pursuing their dreams, not allowing anyone to hold them back, of overcoming fear. In his personal life he mentions that his childhood was a happy one. However, his parents' conservative values must have prevented them from embracing wholeheartedly Keillor's profession as a writer and entertainer, a fact that must have caused him some personal heartache even as he continued to cherish and love his family. Who doesn't want wholehearted approval of their decisions by their parents?

Mr. Blue wrote to me:

"there comes a point when you simply must accept your children as they are, stop prodding and pushing and punishing them, and learn to enjoy their company."

Garrison Keillor has experienced estrangement in his life but it was from a city and possibly from an ex-wife and other significant others. He left St. Paul in 1987 due to his anger at his privacy having been invaded by the local media. He returned to the city a few years later.

In 1999 when I wrote to Mr. Blue as an experiment in writing to an advice columnist Garrison Keillor was the enamored father of a one year old daughter and had lived a life that had substantial differences from that of his parents. Here he was as the respected writer, Salon advice columnist, and passionately adoring father. As Mr. Blue he receives a letter from a woman who he imagines has been unappreciative of her only daughter and who he believes has angered her daughter for no good reason. While Keillor has a wonderfully creative imagination, being estranged from a daughter and being anything but adoring of a daughter would be so far out of his realm of experience in 1999 that he reacted with what he could understand (and what he may have experienced): that parents are sometimes overly critical, judgemental, and angry at their children, that I might be that kind of parent, that my daughter's behavior wasn't that hard to understand, and that it was probably my fault.

Given what I learned in my online research on Garrison Keillor, I can speculate on why he reacted to me as he did as Mr. Blue. Being estranged from his beautiful young daughter would be unfathomable to him. There would be no reason for estrangement. He is an adoring encouraging emotionally supportive loving parent. How could estrangement be possible? It simply wouldn't be possible. That is the viewpoint of any parent who is adoring encouraging emotionally supportive and loving. That is the viewpoint that I once had too.

BTW in my online research I found Keillor's writing on Prairie Home Companion's site. He is such a funny writer! One of his columns could make me smile on my bluest day. While I never will like Mr. Blue's response to me as "Rejected Mom", I continue to love his writing which are treasures of American humor.

Here are some Garrison Keillor links:

• Holiday Greetings from Garrison Keillor, December 23, 2003
• Crankiness in Decline, Says the Old Guy, From Time Magazine, August 19, 2002
• (The last sentences of this exquisitely funny column are: "Give the bastards a hard time: that's how you get to be old. But why am I telling you, bubby? Grow up and come back when you know something."
• Which wasn't directed at me but reminds me of Keillor's very different perspective on combativeness in Mr. Blue's 1999 response to me.
• The New York Times, A Prodigal Son Makes His Way Home By Neal Karlen, March 27, 1994
• Profile: Minnesota Zen Master by Nicholas Wroe, Saturday March 6, 2004

Wednesday, October 13, 2004

40th Year Reunion & Reactions to No Response

My high school class 40th year reunion in my hometown was Sunday, October 10. I had a wonderful time! I was able to hug friends I hadn't seen in 30 years. Four hours is too short to catch up on so much time gone by. I was surprised that some people left before the 4 hours was up. But we'd had a large class that had had split sessions so that not everyone had known each other. Maybe some had come to the reunion and the friends that they had hoped to see weren't there?

I had been to my 10th reunion and had been surprised then not to know many people there but this one was much better. More of the people that I had known were there. We all had changed so much! What made recognizing each other possible were the little paper labels we all wore stuck to our clothing. The labels had our names and pictures from the yearbook. The pictures jogged the memory cells! But I wished I could remember more. I knew the young faces and then learned the old faces but couldn't remember what it was that I knew about them even though I was overjoyed to see them!

For a while I wondered if I would stick my nose into someone's lapel to peer at their paper label and discover that the person was my ex-husband, divorced 20 years ago. I know he has changed, put on weight, and looks different. I didn't think I'd recognize him even though I have seen a picture of him on the internet. Finally someone assured that he wasn't there. I was delighted!

I took pictures of my classmates. We shared stories of old times and new times. I learned that some old friends had died. Some friends had sad stories as well as happy ones. We sang our high school song which I could not have remembered to save my life prior to going to this reunion! I noticed that some people hadn't changed in some ways ... like Pete who was into physical fitness in high school was still proud of his physique and worked to maintain it. Some people were very funny and entertaining at the reunion but I didn't remember them as being the class clown back in high school. The one I remember as being the class clown wasn't there. The girl who had the most beautiful red hair and was a cheerleader wasn't there. They said she was recently divorced and that the reunion fell on the first anniversary of her new marriage.

I never did hear from my daughter in response to my invitation to lunch. I respected her decision not to be in touch with me. I didn't go to her house and try to convince her to end the estrangement. Her refusal to respond doesn't endear her to me. Much the opposite!

My feelings towards her are growing colder. I am detaching more. Author Barbara LeBey (author of Family Estrangements: How They Begin, How to Mend Them, How to Cope With Them) emailed me recently about occasionally sending something to an estranged relative to let them know that you still care. Her estrangement with her son ended after she contacted him to ask if he wanted some things that were still in her house. I was so happy for her when I had read that their estrangement was resolved.

For me the lack of response from my daughter causes me to feel less and less warmth for her. I don't know if there will come a day when I don't care. I suspect as the estrangement continues that Robin does not care and that I am foolish to continue caring.

LeBey was concerned that when someone stops trying that the other person would think that they had stopped caring. In my case the result of my continuing to try is making me care less. If I stop trying, it might keep me from getting to that point of being so hurt by the continued lack of response that I truly will no longer care.

I know others who believe in attempting to reconnect regardless of getting no response. A woman on the Family Rifts discussion board chooses not allow estranged relatives to control how she behaves in a relationship. While they no longer would act as though they were a brother or a son, she refused to behave as though she no longer had a brother or a son. She continued to act as she always had and sent cards and presents no matter that they did not respond. She continued to care. Her son recently contacted her and they have resolved their estrangement to her great joy. The instigation for his ending the estrangement was his girlfriend's influence. She had talked him into contacting his mother.

I don't know what the best thing to do is. Other than to take things one step at a time and to follow my heart and my gut. I don't know what to do about the ice crystals in my heart. I used to think that it was the worst thing in the world to be cold but now I begin to appreciate the detachment of that feeling. It protects from more pain.

Tuesday, October 19, 2004 Tongue in Cheek Option: Sending Curses

The website www.pinstruck.com is back up after a 10 month hiatus (and then later disappeared again). Pinstruck.com is a site where you can send a voodoo curse. I don't believe in voodoo. I hope you don't believe in voodoo. I hope you believe in humor!

Pinstruck.com is about humor ... and revenge! But a humorous kind of revenge. This option might not be appropriate for you. But, if you have achieved some detachment and need a break from the serious baggage of the year or the day, it might help to get a smile on your face. Indeed, you don't have to curse someone who you're mad at. You might just want to curse someone who you think would enjoy the opportunity to be cursed this way. Or you might not want to send a curse but just visit the website and read it to get some chuckles. I cannot guarantee that you won't see some profanity there in the on-site reviews! So keep that in mind.

When I first was told about this site over a year ago, I did send a couple of curses to friends and to someone who had a weird sense of humor and deserved receiving a good curse of this sort. I might have even sent a pinstruck.com curse to my daughter but I'm not sure. I think I did. I don't know if she has a sense of humor. The perpetrators of pinstruck.com surely do!

Sunday, October 24, 2004 The Brothers Dell'Orto & the Restaurants Manganaro

Just within the last two weeks in an online discussion on Mark Sichel's Family Rifts board the story of two brothers who hadn't spoken to each other in over 25 years was mentioned. These brothers own restaurants which are located next to each other on 9th Avenue in New York City. Funny how things go but when you hear about something it so often happens that next thing you know, there it is! Whatever it was that was mentioned just miraculously turns up! And so it did with the Manganaro restaurants.

I was in New York to see a big show at the Jacob Javits Center and went to look for a good place for lunch with a friend. What to my wondering eyes did appear but the two restaurants that I had heard about online. I have included the two restaurants and links to online articles that mention them and the court case on my links page.

I had lunch at the plainer more homespun of the two. The one called Manganaro's Foods. I had the smoked chicken sandwich with brie cheese and arugula and their special dressing on crusty Italian bread that was so crusty that my jaw popped while I was eating it! I had a coffee which seemed not to be the correct thing to order as the server person seemed a little put out to have to go and get something other than an espresso or a cappucino. But lunch was great and I'd go again and wish it wasn't such a long drive to get there.

Manganaro's Hero Boy was the name of the other restaurant. Renovations were being done to one side. The overall impression of Hero Boy was of an elegant upscale establishment of fine woods and refinement. The chairs were Shaker ladderbacks which struck me funny as I've never seen Shaker furniture used in an Italian restaurant before. Italians being known more for considerably flashier decor than the Shakers who were the epitome of unflash. Or simplicity.

Manganaro's Foods was more down home Italian. Bakery cases in the front with cookies. Meats hanging from the ceiling. Plain chairs and tables. An old tin ceiling. Great food!

I expect that the plusher looking restaurant has equally great food. In my mind the impression that the two restaurants left me with was that of a great pair of old blue jeans and a fine suit. Both kinds of clothing being desirable to wear at different times and for different purposes. Just depending on the mood.

I've known Italians who were so touchy and obstinate that they wouldn't speak to each other, despite the closeness of their blood ties, for many years. Indeed, my Italian ex-husband's mother and one of her sisters refused to speak for many years. I recall that it had something to do with who would get a candy dish from the estate of their mother. Although I might have the candy dish dispute mixed up with some other equally relevant family argument. Yes, I've known Italians like this and even been estranged by some of them myself. Maybe it is something in the jeans (sic)? Sorry. I couldn't resist!

Wednesday, December 8, 2004 The Busyness Cure

Christmas approaches. The end of the year is near. The beginning of the year that will be the tenth year of the estrangement from my daughter is also near. I am resigned to never seeing my daughter again and never understanding why.

I've been very busy with volunteering for a nonprofit organization and with creating artworks. I've thrown myself into doing things for the nonprofit. Coming up with ideas to improve it. Watching for things that are going wrong and working to put them right. Putting in lots of time. I feel productive although sometimes overwhelmed with the number of things that need to be done. There aren't a lot of people willing to contribute time, energy, and money. When you step in to help, you find more and more and more things to do. That's my experience. It's rewarding to see progress and feel as though I've made a difference. It's scary too when I think of how much there is to do and how few people there are to do it. And what if I want to stop? How hard will that be?

A woman in her seventies or eighties who is a volunteer has tried to resign her position as a chairperson but no one has stepped forward to take her place. So she keeps doing the work. I like her very much. I hope that I am mentally and physically as agile as she is when I am her age. She is admirable!

As for my daughter, I continue to visit her websites. I learned that she has begun a new business. She is now a dog trainer, giving obedience lessons to dogs. I filled in a feedback form on her new website giving her a compliment on the site and wishing her luck. I did this knowing that there will be no response from her. I'm happy for her that she is trying this new business. I think it might be more suited to her personality than the profession that she has been working at for the last 12 years.

While I've struggled with depression in this holiday season, I've made myself be so busy that I don't have time to think about it much. I have been very depressed. I recognize the symptoms. The negativity. The grim outlook. The judgementalism. The self loathing. The self loathing .... which is the worst. But being busy helps. I have good hours and days too. It's not constant depression.

I'm curious if my daughter has found this site. I've often wondered about that. I didn't think she had the curiosity or interest in me to look to see what I'm doing on the internet. I don't think she cares enough to look me up. But I've been wrong about a lot of things in my life and maybe this is one of them. Not that she cares about me but she might be curious about what I'm doing. I doubt it but it's possible. And then I wonder what her reaction would be to the blog. I think she'd be angry. There's a lot here that would anger her. I'd expect that she'd be angry enough that if she had decided to talk to me that she'd change her mind!

I don't think I'll ever know if she has found the site. There would be ways to find it easily enough. I have links to this site in other places connected to my email address and she would know my email address. It's possible that she's seen it and reads it.

Once upon a time I cared enough that I hesitated before doing this site because I was concerned about my daughter's reaction to it. Then I did it anyway. My daughter lost the right to influence me in anything that I do when she decided to cut me out of her life. In essence we are divorced from each other. She does whatever she wants and I do whatever I want. It is no longer the business of either of us what the other does. If she has found this site and doesn't like it, I no longer care. I do care about her and wish her well but I do not care about her reaction to whatever I say or do. We're both adults. She's almost 40 years old. She's old enough to face the consequences of her decisions. I've already lost her. I might as well do whatever I feel like doing since the worst already happened. Once someone has estranged themselves from you, they can't threaten you any longer with refusing to talk to you. They are already estranged!

Christmas Day, Dec. 25, 2004

Odd way to spend the day, updating Estrangements.com. But that's what I'm doing this afternoon. Friends who we sometimes spend Christmas with are away. They are visiting relatives from whom they've been estranged in the past. Their relationships with their families on both sides have been in disarray at times. But they keep hoping for the best.

Being busy throughout this holiday season ... with the exception of today where I am having a quiet day ... has worked well for me. While I was depressed some of the time, I also was fine for much of it. I survived it pretty well this year. I recommend the busyness cure. Especially being the kind of busy where you're doing something to help someone else. It takes you out of yourself and your cares and gets your focus on others. While, yes, it's important to feel feelings including the grief and anger and sorrow and frustration of being estranged, dwelling all the time on the painful stuff is overwhelming and can make depression worse. If you can't get your mind off it in your quiet moments, you may be able to get your mind off it by submerging yourself in projects for others. Or even projects for yourself if they keep you busy enough. Projects that require the involvement of your mind.

I added a new link to the linkspage today. A friend told me about Tom DeLay's estrangement from his family. There is an article by Peter Perl that I referenced for the link: "Absolute Truth" by Peter Perl, May 13, 2001, Washington Post. Interesting. Even among the most conservative of us who espouse "family values" estrangement is alive and well.

I have stopped posting on an online discussion group on estrangements. I've decided that after 9 years of talking about the estrangement from my daughter, it is time to move away from a regular dialogue about it. Talking about my own estrangement so much and trying to help others who are in the depths of pain was not helping me. It was hurting me. I can talk here in my blog about estrangement in a general sense, about the estrangements of others, about the possibilities of resolution, about "estrangement sightings", about Estrangement as an issue in life. But continuing to dwell on my pain and loss in a forum where everyone else is a recent victim of an estrangement is hurting me, preventing me from moving on with my life. I'm not a therapist. My support for others who are estranged is though Estrangements.com. Not through my ongoing participation in a discussion group.

Life is too short to spend it in pain. Online discussion groups can be a great online place for anyone who needs to talk about their estrangement and discuss it. (Note: This paragraph has been edited in 2006. Online discussion groups are also an opportunity waiting to happen for others to stalk you and harrass you. If posting on an online group, it makes sense to take precautions to protect yourself.) In the first years after any loss, people do benefit from talking about their grief, pain and loss to get through it. Talking with others can be healing. It's important. Without that release, we can go deep into grief and depression, so deep that some of us never come out. It does help to talk with someone, a therapist, a minister, a supportive friend, an offline group, an online group. Eventually though, we can heal. We may never entirely get over being estranged from someone we loved but we can get better. We can experience joy. We can get to the point where we don't need to think and talk about the loss all the time. We can get on with our lives. Unless we refuse to move on and we talk about our loss forever and ever and ever. Like friends who talk about their divorce of 15 years ago as though it happened yesterday. Eventually talking about the pain becomes a way of never letting it go. We hurt ourselves if we never let it go. Even though it seems in our heart that it would be wrong to let it go. After all, we're talking about family! But if we value ourselves and our lives, there comes a time when we need to get on with our life and live. I am speaking from the standpoint of 9 going on 10 years of estrangement.

We can respect the importance that our relative or friend had to us even as we go forward without them. Years ago my mother repeated something to me that her sister-in-law had said. My mother was upset about something and had been going on about it for some time. Her sister-in-law said, "Are you going to make a career of this?" That statement stayed with me ... making a career of an issue. People do that. Sometimes it makes sense. Sometimes it doesn't. That statement is almost dismissive ... possibly not affording sufficient respect for someone's feelings but then it does make a point that is valid too ... how much of our lives can we afford to spend on situations that we can't change? Life is short.

A man I knew died a week ago at the age of 50. Suddenly and unexpectedly. I read his obituary. He had a son who lives in Florida. I never knew he had a son. Now I wonder if they were estranged and that is why he never mentioned him. But that isn't the point. The point is that he was only 50 years old when he died and he had no idea when he went to sleep that night that he wouldn't be waking up. It makes sense for each of us to do the best we can, to live honorably, to find joy. I think that most of those who died on Sept. 11, 2001 would agree with that. Every time someone dies, I am reminded of that ... that I have the opportunity to live and make the most of my life. If the dead could talk, I think they would tell us that. I think they would disapprove of spending the rest of our lives dwelling in pain about situations that can't be changed. We do our best, we grieve, we heal, we live.

About Christmas .... it seems almost inappropriate to wish those who come here looking for answers a Merry Christmas. If you have come here to find a way to resolve an estrangement and you're miserable over being estranged, then the last thing I'd think you'd want to hear is a greeting of Merry Christmas when you are feeling the least merry that you've ever felt. Christmas may have been torture. The entire season may have been just one hell of a day after another. Been there, done that too. A good grim "bah humbug" might be something you'd rather hear.

So ... rather than wish you a Merry Christmas ... I will offer you a Get Well card. I hope that you do Get Well and someday find yourself able to enjoy the greeting of Merry Christmas again. I wish you the ability to smile. to get up in the morning with no tears, the freedom to spend most of a day thinking of whatever you'd like to think about rather than this misery of being estranged, the joy of being able to appreciate the sun, good friends, the fact that you're alive. I wish you the miracle of waking some day and later thinking with surprise about how you didn't wake up thinking about your estrangement and you can't remember how long it has been since you thought about being estranged. I wish you relief from your pain, healing from your loss, and the ability to feel joy once again.

No, I don't have the answer that you may have come here to find but I promise you that there is healing whether you find the answer or not. Eventually. It takes time. Have faith and hang in there!

December 27, 2004 Monday: New Links & Thoughts on Productivity & Dysfunction

Sunday I spent the whole afternoon researching the internet for new links to include here. I did my search differently than I had in the past and found a wealth of information that I hadn't seen before. A huge number of pages came up, much more than had come up in the past. I went through 11 of the pages and picked out enough relevant material to include here to keep me busy for all of this evening. I even found a reference to an estrangement between Cornell and the Paleontological Research Institution that was resolved after 80 years!

I now have links to information about the relationships of the famous advice giving sisters, Eppie Lederer (Ann Landers) and Pauline Phillips (Dear Abby) and their also not-so-friendly advice giving daughters, Margo Howard and Jeanne Phillips. I think that, like having the right color shoes to go with a dress, having links on an Estrangement site about the famous advice giving sisters is an Absolute Must! It just wouldn't be a Genuine Estrangement Site without them!

Can you imagine? Giving advice for a living and you are estranged from your sister? Who also gives advice for a living? How odd is that?

Can you tell my depression has lifted? I think that's Marvelous! Funny but once the depression lifts, it is like it was never there. And when it is there, it is as though I am never without depression. I told a friend today that I suffer from depression. She didn't have a clue!

Last night Gordon B. Hinckley, the 95 year old President of the Church of the Latter Day Saints was being interviewed on Larry King Live. King asked him how he felt after losing his wife of over 60 years. Hinckley answered that he missed her terribly but that, "Work is the best antidote for sorrow." I think he is right.

Two years ago after the death of a woman I knew, I bought five books on suicide. Too many people that I'd known had died that way and I had suspected that she committed suicide. I needed to know more. One book discussed the statistics of suicide. When times are bad, in times of economic depression and war, the rates of suicide go down. When times are relatively good, the rates tend to go up. Why is this? Is it because we have too much time to think and feel and get morose? Is it that we aren't distracted by the need to solve problems? We have nothing absolutely imperative to grab our attention? We don't feel needed when times are good? So we get morose and we do away with ourselves, feeling unloved, unwanted, unneeded, as though we might as well do away with ourselves because we feel miserable and we have nothing to distract us from our inwardly directed attention?

Not that this makes complete sense in every case where someone does away with themselves. Just in the last couple of days a famous heart surgeon who has saved the lives of hundreds and hundreds of children killed himself. One of the children in whom he placed a heart pump was on television just a few days ago. That boy talked to the doctor on the phone the day before he killed himself and the doctor seemed fine. Apparently no one saw it coming. The man was needed. Why would he have done this? He was a treasure. A man with skilled hands who cared. I can't imagine why he did this.

For myself I know that being productive, feeling productive does help me. So I work on research on estrangement to put here on this site. This kind of research doesn't affect me the same way as talking about the estrangement with my daughter does. It doesn't depress me. I can stand back and look at the information analytically. It interests me. It doesn't feel as personal. Seeing all these different stories about estrangement makes me feel so much less unique. It is such a human condition. We can call it dysfunctional but maybe it is not so dysfunctional after all.

I think that we use the word dysfunctional too loosely. We might as well all just call ourselves normally dysfunctional! Like normal neurotics. I think there was a book by that title, Normal Neurotics, years ago. If there wasn't, there should have been!

I remember when I first heard the word dysfunctional in relation to families and relationships. It was back in 1991 when I was in a treatment program for Adult Children of Alcoholics. When I heard that word, I knew that it was a word that would become the "in" word to use to describe families with problems and that I would hear it a thousand times. Before the word dysfunctional came into use, I can't recall any equivalent word that was used to describe families where there were problems.

What I don't like about the word is that it puts families and/or relationships on a par with appliances and cars. The car isn't working. It isn't functional. It is dysfunctional. We take it in for repairs or we junk it. The family is dysfunctional. Everyone is to blame. We point fingers at the poor sad dysfunctional family. There is no Family Repair Shop. We can't junk it. We can't sell it. We can't repair it. We are ashamed of it. It is our fault, somehow. After all, we are part of the Dysfunctional Family. So we must be Dysfunctional too. A Family isn't a Family without all of its parts and if the Family is Sick then aren't the parts sick too? And how do the parts fix the Family? We must be hopeless!

We get to make jokes about the Dysfunctional Family. We feel embarrassed to be part of the Dysfunctional Family. We sneer at the Dysfunctional Family. Even though when we look closely enough at most families we discover that there are really very very few if any families that rate being called Functional. There seems as though there is some dysfunction in all families. Yet we persist in calling our families Dysfunctional. While the real problem is that Uncle Milty is alcoholic. And Cousin Diana could use some medication for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. But Aunt Emily is a highly successful business owner who once was anorexic but has conquered that problem and is much better now, thank you very much. There are some individual human problems that affect other people in the family so we call the whole family dysfunctional. The term is well embedded now in our vocabulary. I don't see it going out of fashion any time soon. But I don't think it really means all that much. We might as well just call ourselves Human!

On a different topic: I feel so sad for all the people caught in the tsunamis in Southeast Asia. What an overwhelming job that is! I've been thinking of those people on the other side of the world and how different life is right now for them. What a contrast! I open up the AOL home page and see at the top a headline on Retailers & something about the Christmas Blues and another headline on the adjoining inches of the page that over 23,000 are dead in Southeast Asia. We have so little to feel blue about compared to the families on those flooded coastlines on the other side of the world.

Those are my thoughts for this Monday. New Years' Eve and 2005 are heading our way in just a few days. I have a lot of things to do. I am so happy ... although a bit overwhelmed ... to have these things to do. I'm a bit behind on a few important tasks too. But I'll get it all done one of these days. I am so lucky to be alive and to be able to live my life with choices and in relative safety and with so few terrible natural disasters. I am counting my blessings.

Oh yes. One more thing. I did send an animated email Christmas greeting to my daughter. One from the great greeting card site, www.jacquielawson.com. I did not get the confirmation that she even accessed her card. It was a very cute card too! She loves dogs. The card was very dog friendly. But anyway ... I gave it a shot ... sending a card. I didn't think she'd open it. I don't get it. But I'm not letting it bother me this time.

Tuesday, December 28, 2004 What we can do ...

Do you know the Serenity Prayer? I'm sure you do. It makes such a good point ... that we can only change our own behavior, not the personalities and behavior of others. There is something I can do, that we can all do, when disaster strikes. We can donate. That's what I did. Also, I found two links to put here for your convenience. Please donate to help the victims of the tsunamis.

Networkforgood. org offers a smorgasbord of choices for donating. They also provide the financial numbers for each organization when you click on the Donate button so you can make a fairly informed choice. http://www.networkforgood.org

Sri Lanka America Association of Southern California is collecting donations and materials to aid victims of the tsunami: http://www.slaasc.com

Thank you!