(Even though I am holding back so much. There are thousands of words of "me, me, what about me", of anger and frustration and what it is to be so utterly disappointed by the very person who taught you to behave better than their current behavior. The overdue fall off the pedestal. The transformation of a role model into an old woman. The fights, the screaming fights, the juvenile behavior I work so hard to never in turn visit on the people I love (and I still fail). Realizing one of your best friends isn't a very good one. Finding a person you love to be wanting. Loving them anyway. Helping them anyway. Being a failure at helping. The impossible paradox of being the adult child of a sometimes-childish parent. The long view of years upon years upon years into the future in order to live through the present.\n\nAfter both of my great-grandparents died, I found myself looking through one of my mamaw's diaries. They were farmers, so her entries were nothing more than brief weather reports. I came across a day in the 1950s: "Clouds today but no rain. Had a pretty hot argument with Brooks. Says he wants to go live with her." \n\nSome day I want to be able to button up this time as effectively as my great-grandmother did her almost-divorce. If I cannot pretend it didn't happen, then at the least I want it to be terse and easily missed. Just a jump-cut between the present and that future, that is all I can aim for.)

My spouse and I got engaged and married in July last year. We had our backyard reception that October. Christmas, birthdays, our first anniversary, buying and moving into our first house together...\n\nAll of these dates would approach with my mom saying, "well surely by then I'll have moved out"...and then the date would come and go and she'd say how sad she was for still having to stay with us.\n\n(Of our relationship of over three years, we have officially lived together, alone, for about ten months. Roughly fifteen if you count back when we each had an apartment but he only went to his once a month to pay rent.)\n\nThere has been a lot of denial. But I cannot make a game about my mom's denial, about how angry it has made and continues to make me, because I cannot even speak of it, really. Because if I did, I would be angry forever, and I couldn't continue having a relationship with my mother. And the goal is to help her reclaim her independence, not to make myself feel better.\n\n

My mom moves out into her own place on Wednesday. She has lived with my spouse and me since late March, 2011.\n\n---\nThere was a whole elaborate game here (well...not THAT elaborate) about her background and my childhood, but it was mostly me telling her story, and about two hours after I wrote it I decided I wasn't comfortable speaking authoritatively about someone else's life, especially while they're still alive.\n\nBut I also don't have the energy to rewrite and reconstruct this whole thing. So here are some tiny fragments and bits of a game I didn't release, the remaining scraps that are more about me than her. Pick and choose which you want to read.\n\n[[What was it like being raised by Republicans?|Red state]]\n[[Wait, March 2011 was a long time ago|Married]]\n[[Why has she stayed for so long?|Duration]]\n

Courtney Stanton

I can't really speculate confidently on why things have moved at the speed they've moved at, beyond saying that to lose one's center -- and my mom's work was very much her center -- looks from the outside to be a crisis of self, and those are probably very difficult to deal with.\n\nI know that not having enough money can make you panicky, can make it hard to calm down enough to make really "wise" choices...especially when so often the most cost-saving decision is the one that requires you to already have a lot of money in the bank.\n\nI know that my mom grew up poor, truly poor, and that on some level her personal narrative had been one of stepping firmly away and above, of moving up social classes, of Never Going Hungry Again. I suggested once she apply for SNAP benefits (food stamps) and she ended up crying angry tears and yelling at me. \n\nShe's a very proud person, more proud than practical sometimes...I will probably never tell her I made this game, and hopefully if she does find it she'll forgive me.\n\n[[...|...]]

December 8, 2012

Both of my parents were, looking back, pretty conservative about a lot of stuff that I'm rather progressive about now. I think at one point my mom had to have a talk with my dad about just letting me have my opinions and to stop trying to argue with me, but that conversation would have immediately followed the time he sent me one of his "joke" email forwards, this one with the subject line, "Beer: The Date Rape Drug for Men", so I still don't feel in the wrong for my reaction.\n\n(My reaction involved a reply-all, because my dad, in addition to not being able to remember that his daughter is a rape surivor, also doesn't understand how BCC-ing works.)\n\nAnyway, I grew up in a monoculture, one that led me to voting (at age 18) for George W. Bush in the 2000 election. Any time someone tries to convince you it's hard for people to change (as if that's a reason to stop trying), please remember my presidential voting record. Change is hard but sometimes you cannot live with the alternative. \n\n

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