errantember

My Mom and I have very different ideas about money, security, and the relationship between them. Recently she's transformed from a life-long Democrat to a Fox News junkie who thinks Glen Beck is a hero. Her parents grew up during the depression, so of course she's inherited patterns from them regarding fear and money. The differences in our outlooks on how to make enough money to live have been thrown into start relief over the past year of unemployment. I've finally realized that although she has set an excellent example in many ways by being as financially together as she is, her approach to money is too fear-based to continue to allow it into my own planning and outlook. I can think back to decisions like the one not to go to Burning Man last year, when the Austin crew build the Temple. It would probably have been the most rewarding experience I could possibly have there to go along and participate, and at worst the expenditure might have meant I had to get a job a few weeks sooner than otherwise on a time scale measured in months, but I didn't go. I can look at hundred other small decisions where I've let that small, nagging fear at the back of my mind finally tip the scales, possibly including my current decision to at least temporarily re-install myself into a cubefarm, and they can all be traced back to that powerful maternal voice whispering in my ear. No more. I'm firing my Mom from her role as financial adviser. From now on, she's going to have to take it on faith that her son is an adult who can manage his own financial life, and she's going to have to figure out how to find her own internal security without knowing the details.

I'm not exactly sure how I'm going to deliver the message, and I'm a little concerned about what I might have to do to enforce it, but I'll probably send her an e-mail with the general idea sometime tonight.

So instead of finally being done with her foot surgery and able to walk again after 6 weeks in a wheelchair, my Mom just found out she'll be in that wheelchair for another *month*. In addition, many of the long-suffering and very generous friends and neighbors who have been busting their ass to help her out will be going on vacation soon. As she lives 200 miles away, this translates into probably at least three more trips up there in the coming months to help her out. She's super-depressed, as anyone would be after being stuck in a wheelchair for over a month, and I was looking forward to a Mom-free summer to get my financial shit in gear. I'll be leaving tomorrow on the first of these newer trips, and will be back in town on Saturday, hopefully in time to go see Oceana at the Vortex.

Arriving at Elysium without earplugs is a *definite* sign of stress.

Arriving *with* underwear, however, is a whole other *level*...

The actual trip to D/FW today was pretty uneventful, except for the fact that I managed to leave by noon, which may be a new family record. The lumbar pillow I Manifested for myself last time I went to Goodwill was a *huge* help for the trip, and with occasional massaging and acupressure, I had no long-term effects. The dogs were naturally super-excited to see Wiggles, my Mom's < 3 lb. Miniature Jack Russel Terrier. The plan was to try to have dinner at Saviannos, a *far* better Italian restaurant than Euless deserves, but when I arrived my Mom was in a very bad mood.
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