Um. roadriverrail points out, via the community the_recession, that Sweden has just set new interest rates.

New negative interest rates.

They're charging people money for the privilege of keeping their money in the banks.

This happens in a week. Original data here. The money(!!) quote is: The deposit rate is at the same time cut to -0.25 per cent and the lending rate to 0.75 per cent.

Some commentary here.

I had a semi-revelation recently. Semi-, because it was only a confirmation of something I'd internalized before I reached double digit ages; Life is not an ABC Movie of the Week, there usually aren't happy endings.

New revelation, because the details were specific to something I hadn't known before: Forgiveness doesn't make it all better.

The person I've forgiven (my mother) wants to be a part of my life, and I have absolutely no interest. I won't miss it if I never speak to her again, and that fact hurts her terribly. I had a vague idea, that once I realized that I harbored no more resentment towards her, that it would all get better again--we'd hang out, chat on the phone, what have you. It hasn't happened.

The anger is gone, but the hurt remains. I don't *trust* her any more now than I did when I was ten--which is to say, not at all. We have very little in common, and the person I want her to be (a mommy) isn't someone she's ever been. Even if she were to transmogrify into 'a mommy' overnight, it's too late. That's not who I need anymore. In my life now, I need friends--and I don't form long distance friendships easily. My few LDRs are with people I actively like, not with people I'm *obligated* to.

I don't want to get in touch with her just to tell her that I am not interested; my passive aggressive style (learned from you-know-who) is to let her figure it out on her own. I know that that's neither right nor fair, but it's easy, and I've always been a sucker for the easy way out.

OK, OK, OK: This week, I will make an aggressive effort to find her and call her. I don't know how I am going to tell her this *when* I call her, but I will tell her. I will also make sure that she has phone numbers for a very few of my family, and vice versa--should anything happen to me (God forbid, knock on wood, insert your favorite disclaimer here), I will make sure that someone knows how to reach her and tell her.

I'm not angry at her. She was directly responsible for my accutely miserable childhood, but she still did the best thing she knew how to do. The fact that just about any idiot could have told her that she was being, well, an idiot, doesn't enter into it. I won't get into the major whats and whys here, that's for a locked post if it happens at all, but believe me when I say that the difficulty I have had in trusting people is directly attributable to her.

Poor woman. At least one of her three children (my sister) still keeps in contact. My brother doesn't so much keep in contact as stay put; he can't run and hide since the stroke, but before the stroke no one had any clue where he was. I don't know how much anyone cared, either.

Who says you can't choose your family? I have, and the day I realized that that was what I was doing was one of the best of my life. Wasn't very long ago, either. I can't imagine one of my family ever doing something so awful that I would consciously want to avoid them forever and ever amen; I can't imagine ever wanting to seek my blood family out for friendship's sake.

I will track my mother down because it is the kind thing to do. I won't like it, but I will do it. And if anything else needs to be said on the subject, I will very likely say it here.

The SO and I broke it off. Well, that's all right. It's not the scenario I was hoping for, but in honesty, it's probably the best possible outcome. He and I are still friends, and I think still close, and I value the friendship and the closeness much more than I ever did the sex. So I think that, overall, I've gained a lot.

Not least of what I've gained is friendship with not only him, but his friends and clan in general. I am extremely grateful to the Universe that I've had the opportunity to acquaint myself with such people, and that I've not made any more of a mess of it than I have.

I believe that most of the relationship problems were my fault. Yes, he made some major errors too; big bad hairy ones that did a lot of damage. But in the long run, it was my hang ups and my fear of trusting that created the problems. I had the same problem now that I did the last time I dated someone who could have been very good for me (though that seems a loooooong time ago . . .); I was unable to allow myself to be loved without demanding more. He tried, and I wasn't willing to let it be enough.

I'm not feeling sorry for myself here, or down on myself; I made the best choices that I knew how. I did my level best and don't have anything to be ashamed of. It's just that this time I can see the errors inherent of some of those choices more clearly, and I am generally grateful for the opportunity to learn from my mistakes. That's not a choice I allowed myself last time I was in this situation, because I was not willing to admit my errors. I've grown up just a little bit since then. Just a very, very, little bit in the last decade or so. Give me another three thousand years and we'll see how I've developed then.

I am very much looking forward to the party Saturday night. :))

"There is only one way to stand upright, but an infinity of ways to fall." -- G.K. Chesterton

Today I feel as if I've found most of them.

Last night something very, very casually said and done hurt me so much that I lost my breath. I felt as if I'd been kicked in the stomach. Today I made it worse than it had to be, but no worse than it *is.* I hope y'all understand that . . . .

Why does life have to be so damned complicated, with different rules for every person? I know that that is where a great deal of the joy in life comes, as well. Infinite diversity in infinitie combinations . . . . *waves to fellow geeks*

But there are days when the excitement and potential fun seem like a lousy trade off for simplicity and ease of use. I want a design for a life that's a little more user friendly, please. Someone get a committee together and draw up some blueprints.

I can't think of a single thing that has gone really right in the last week. No, that's not true. There is one thing, but that can come later.

This is edited due to extreme rambling length.

( Read more... )

1) There are things about my life that I don't like but that I really can't change. I'm going to fake a good attitude about them until the attitude takes.

2) I spend too much time worrying about the well-being of others. I won't stop caring, but I will stop trying to fix situations that I didn't cause. This will take some work; old habits are hard to break.

3) I've been making a mistake by only seriously dating one person recently. I am back on the dating market in a very big way. Now I just need to find the time to follow through on this. :-)

I swear the earth shall surely be complete to him or her who shall be complete,
The earth remains jagged and broken only to him or her who remains jagged and broken.
-- Walt Whitman

Jimmy's upset with KD. KD's upset with Jimmy. They're reduced to one-word sentences. If they were in person instead of online I suspect they'd be grunting at each other, at best.

Jimmy's explaining to me that he doesn't have to continue like this. "I can turn my feelings off," says he. "I'm not bottling them up, I'm just not going to feel them anymore. I can just switch it off."

The reason I find myself doubting this is that he was yelling at me when he said it. Jimmy, shouting?

They're both acting like a couple of children; the difference between them is that Jimmy knows it, and will quit when he's ready. He won't be ready tonight, or next week, but he will move past this and next time he'll vary the pattern a little differently. It's not much, but it's often the best we poor mortals can hope for. ("for which we poor mortals can hope," I hear my ninth-grade English teacher hiss, in the back of my head.)

It's all I try for, most days; to at least make new errors instead of repeating the ones that failed so badly in the past. I'm fortunate that the people around me are so willing to put up with me as I try to break bad habits; I am more fortunate still that I am aware of a few of the worst of my habits and have the will to try and crack the patterns. The underlying themes are mostly still a mystery to me, but I see self-analysis as a great tool and a great gift and, sometimes, one of the greatest intellectual pleasures of life. Sometimes understanding a problem is tantamount to solving it. More often it isn't, but it's always a firmer ground than confusion.

And I'm off to bed now.