Star 80

[talktooloose]

My dad turned 80 on Saturday. Which is shocking. All week we've been stopping in our tracks at various points in our day and going: ".......80!"

There are actually two birthday parties; the one on Saturday was the family obligation party that included all his cousins (mean age: ......80!) plus me, Snake, my brother and his family. But the REAL party will happen when my sister gets into town in two weeks.

I had the horrible realization during the party that at 42, I still have a lot of stupid inferiority feelings around the extended family because I am neither heterosexually married with kids nor on some of kind of recognized, middle-class-appropriate career trajectory. It was announced that my 43 year old cousin—one my generations last hold-outs in the marriage department—is engaged to his girlfriend and will marry in November. This depressed me for no good reason. I clearly felt that he was now one of the good boys and I wasn't beling left alone in the disappointment camp.

Where do these feelings come from? I have been with Snake for 17 years! I am successful enough in my career! He's a film editor who is out of work half the time! This has got to stop! It's ridiculous that my brain knows and accepts life as it is and recognizes it as good and yet these people who, despite their blood relation, are really just acquaintances, should make me feel second class in my own parents' home.

This feeling that my life will not compare favourably has also prevented me from getting in touch with people from my past whom I would like to reconnect with. I'm not sure the order, but the four things that continue to make me ashamed are:

1. Being gay;
   
2. Being childless;
   
3. Not working full-time on an upwardly mobile career path;
   
4. Devoting my life to artistic pursuits which are not likely to garner me success as defined by mainstream society.

I further feel shamed at displaying this "weakness" here in my journal. I like to come off as the guy with the alternative lifestyle who's got it mostly together. While that is not exactly a pose, it is definitely situational. I surround myself with amazing people like y'all and then I feel okay. But my banner gets a little droopy in others' parades.

(Heh, I meant to talk about my dad here. Didn't work out. Later.)

Comments

[mentalmakeup.livejournal.com]

I feel exactly the same way. While none of my cousins, barring a couple from the more religious wing of the family, have married and started on children, they all have the University thing under their belts, many have long term partners. Even the ones younger than me. None of them needed financial help, none of them are crippled by depression from time to time. The scorn I feel rolling off some family members towards me has in the past been unbearable. What I've been trying to do lately is connect with the family members I do feel are important to me, and recognize during that time that I'm not the one with a problem, they are, and I refuse to be the dirty little secret of the family anymore. I remind them all of my dad, with my fat and my smoking and my eating of meat. It's easier for them to dismiss me as an extension of him, instead of seeing the truth, that being that I was the one victimized. Too painful and messy.

Well THAT quickly turned into a rant about me, but just so you know, I feel a lot of the same things. Non-standard lives breed at least surface contempt, it seems.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

You eat MEAT?!!!!!!!

MONSTER!


What's important for me to remember is that I am not directly getting any kind of negativity from the family around any of the above. This is all in my own head.

[mentalmakeup.livejournal.com]

Funny, cause the important thing for me to remember is that it's NOT all in my head... but I know what you mean. It's difficult for me to separate the people who really ARE judgemental of me from the people who just don't say much at all.

Families. Bah.

[manny-script.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure the order, but the four things that continue to make me ashamed are:


Being gay;

Being childless;

Not working full-time on an upwardly mobile career path;

Devoting my life to artistic pursuits which are not likely to garner me success as defined by mainstream society.

It's interesting. Three of the four things you list as causing you shame are on my list of why I admire you so much.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

And, as you know, I have made my life the way it is with a great deal of deliberateness. What's ironic is that while I am proud of myself for the items on the list, or at least proud of how I work the facts of them, they can simultaneously cause me shame.

Um, I see 1 and 2 as mere facts. What are the three you admire me for?

[manny-script.livejournal.com]

The childless one is neutral. What I admire about the first one is how you express it. The point is really that context is everything. And yes, pride and shame can exist simultaneously. And Yes, I do admire you - but that ain't news.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

I keep trying to think of something brillent and comforting to say, but alas, my mind is blank. I will say this: 17 years is far longer then most people stay married these days its a wonderful accomplishment and at least you live in a country where you can marry your Snake if the two of you choose to. Also, being childless can be solved if you and your partner so choose- adoption or suraget mother. One last thing: Who needs upwardly mobile if you're following your dreams and passions? Too many people worry about 'keeping up with the joneses' and not enough about happiness and fulfillment.

Personaly, you're a hero- you had a dream and you're pursuing it. That's worth a hell of a lot these days.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Thank you. I actually don't need a lot of counselling on these things in terms of their reality. I'm almost amused (but mostly appalled) that I seek this much external validation. I'm in a long-term relationship because we love each other, want the relationship and work at it. We're childless by happenstance and choice. Most of the Joneses aren't worth talking to so keeping up with them seems a waste of energy.

Here's to pursuing dreams.

[painglass.livejournal.com]

To Dreams indeed!

[eversearching.livejournal.com]

It sounds from these comments like you don't need cheerleader so much, so I'll resist the tempation to offer it to you. Instead I'll just say that I'm very often in the same boat (particularly when it comes to relationships (openly non-monogamous) and career (very much non-invested in any sort of middle class sanctioned career path))- yet, like you, these are areas that internally I take a lot of pride in and have very deliberately chosen to engage in the world the way I have.

Yet I cringe when I don't get validation from my relatives or high school friends, and I feel like a faillure for the very things i am most proud of.

For me, what it comes down to is the awareness that humans are social creatures and that social disapproval instinctively feels like a threat (will we be booted out of the tribe and forced to fend for ourselves?). I try to recognize that very deep instinct in me, and try to remind myself that I've been very active in fashioning a tribe for myself that will take better care of me. I also try to remind myself that bravery only happens when I am scared, and that people tend to admire my bravery in being honest (even if they scorn the things I'm honest about).

I feel like on some level, I'm working hard to show that the choices I've made lead to a beautiful life, which sort of trail blazes for future generations (or even younger peers- or even older peers) to feel empowered (which is an awful word, ugh) to life their life more authenticly and openly. So I try to remind myself that being a pioneer of any sort is not easy.

Anyway- just some thoughts this post brought up that I'm throwing out your way.

Hope your day is awesome with your NEW NEIGHBORS!

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Wow. That's a whole lot of "EXACTLY" I need to say in response to your comment.

I sometimes see my life as very deliberate. I was brought up with certain messages and ways of thinking and I've deliberately re-evaluated and gone against a lot of them in my adult life. But messages learned as kids are wired very deeply and all the deliberateness in the world doesn't rip loose all that wiring. That's probably a good thing as I value a lot of the messages that were instilled in me.

Heh, I've been talking a lot with my 12 year old nephew and deliberately questioning a lot of things he says that seem like a given to him. He's smart enough to stop and consider what I'm saying. I like to think I'm helping keep his wiring loose.

Thanks for the wonderful words.

[minisinoo.livejournal.com]

Heh. NOBODY'S got it all together all the time. Some are just better at pretending. One of things you really find out when doing counseling is that people's lives are FAR less "Beaver"-ish than we seem to think. And we all know that, but still. We worry.

Anyway, happy birthday to your dad. Mine is also 80, about to turn 81. I was just told the other day by a financial advisor that the current estimates are that about 50% of the current population can expect to see 88. That's ... boggling. When we were a kid, the idea of reaching 80 was astonishing, and most looked at 75/76 as a good long life. The life-expectancy has now outstripped that by 12-13 years.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

After a week in Algonquin Park camping, it took me a second to understand the sense in which you meant "Beaver-ish".

80 is not groundbreaking in my family as my grandparents lived to 85, 87, 95 and 95. But one is very familiar with the fragility of life at that age and I am trying to treasure my parents' continued healthy existence. ... which didn't stop me and dad from fighting on Saturday, but what are you gonna do?

mofic noted that all three of us have 80 year old fathers at the moment. It's made me think up a fiction about an old mutant (who would be one of the first to ever manifest, I suppose), found dying in a Chicago tenement. I'll see if I can get to it. It won't be a long fic.

I haven't told you yet how much I'm loving Grail. The three muskateers, Artie, the four X-Trainees, Kitty and Piotr, the cold logic of the Hellfire members. It's wonderful and rich and so varied and lively after the incredibly focussed Special.

My only question for you and anyone else whose ever had a superhero create instant couture for herself is how she got the knowledge of building a dress. She's a doctor and so she knows how to make an aneurism -- that's easy, but dresses are complicated!

[minisinoo.livejournal.com]

LOL! On the question. That's actually a pull from the old comics. Phoenix Jean was constantly using her power to change her outfit. (G) Then again, Comics Jean was a model for a while. (Marvel's default for women superheros who have to have real jobs is to make them models and actresses. (rolls eyes))

Anyway, Jean "knows" via telepathy a lot of things. Now, in RL, she might not be able to DO some of those that require "skill" factors. So she may know "how" to knit, but making her hands actually do so would be a different matter. Yet the TK works on mental knowledge. So while she'd probably have a hard time running a sewing machine and assembling a pattern (which is, yes, rather tough, especially some of the complicated ones -- I've done stupid stuff like put in zippers backwards one time too many (g)), if she's making the dress in her mind and constructing it with TK, the same physical skill limitations wouldn't apply.

Or at least, that's how I try to logically explain how she does what she does. :-D

And thanks, on Grail. I'm glad you're enjoying. For all they take place in the same "universe," Special and Grail are VERY different types of stories. I'm having a lot of fun writing Grail though it's the kind of thing that gets increasingly complicated, as you go, since all those plot threads have to be braided together. (GGG)

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember Storm somehow doing costume changes to which were badly explained as having something to do with the ever-lovin' unstable molecule cloth. Storm once had a really badly coloured puffy knit outfit going that my proto-gay sensibilities rebelled against.

The idea of chanelling other bits of skill has been explored in Ulti-X-Men with Jean and Charles performing surgery by picking the brains of far-off surgeons. This works well in the creepy telephathic invasion vibe of ulti-X but fits less well into movieverse of 616 (or whatever the damn number is). Actually, you are dancing well into that scary territory with your take on the Phoenix's growing power. That was one of the most fraught sex scenes I've ever read in a fic.

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yes, I remember Storm somehow doing costume changes which were badly explained as having something to do with the ever-lovin' unstable molecule cloth. Storm once had a really badly coloured puffy knit outfit that my proto-gay sensibilities rebelled against.

The idea of chanelling other bits of skill has been explored in Ulti-X-Men with Jean and Charles performing surgery by picking the brains of far-off surgeons. This works well in the creepy telephathic-invasion vibe of ulti-X but fits less well into movieverse or 616 (or whatever the damn number is). Actually, you are dancing well into that scary territory with your take on the Phoenix's growing power. That was one of the most fraught sex scenes I've ever read in a fic.

[minisinoo.livejournal.com]

The channeling thing in Ult-X bugged me a bit because Millar seemed to forget (or ignore) how much of those things take SKILL, not just knowledge. When I was writing ACCIDENTAL, I tried to explore that difference a bit. Jean knows HOW to do things, but can't actually do them. Similarly in SPECIAL, Scott rebukes her at one point because she thinks she knows all the dangers she might face in Morocco or Eypgt, because she's been in the heads of people who've been there, and he points out that however much she *knows* it doesn't translate to body EXPERIENCE, so she walks and moves like a Mark. She has knowlege without experience, he has experience without (at least initially) much knowledge. Obviously, by the time of Grail, that's changed, but it's something I like to play with because it highlights the weakness of telepathy. (Although I have to give Chuck props bor sheer brains and guts in the most recent Astonishing. Not sure if you read it, but man, it was great. Also implied a few things about Xavier's 'darker' sides.) Anyway, I like that stuff.

And yeah, that sex scene was supposed to be downright disturbing as well as rather hot -- or that was the goal. I wanted the reader to react to it like Scott did. If a reader isn't creeped out a bit by Phoenix Jean, the reader isn't paying attention. (GGG)

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

I'm reading Astonishing as it comes out in the Trades so I'll be reading that one soon, I think, as it closes off the current arc. It's the only X comic I read currently. For that matter, I know of no mainstream book good enough to read at the moment in either DC or Marvel worlds. It is a sad state of affairs when fic far outstrips the world it worships.

In Grail, it seems clear that the faith everyone is putting in Jean's ability to will herself to be human is misguided. Self-restraint is one thing; a godling making herself a lab-bound researcher is another. I mean, didn't these people watch Bewitched?

I love Charles' darker side because how could it not exist? You can write your way around it, but sooner or later you are going to get to confrontations like Scott's with him at the end of Special. He's a telepath and a visionary politician. Realpolitik being what it is, ethics are going to be a bit approximate.

Heh, Kitty is appalled to find that Emma teaches Ethics at the Xavier's in Astonishing. Heh, I say.

[rcornelius.livejournal.com]

I echo what others have said about you.

It's so amazing that in my "gay life" I feel like I live the ideal. Put me out of my normal surroundings and it's self doubt and worry.

But then I come back to senses sooner or later and realise that when I do all of my life accounting, the numbers (figurately) add up and that I am far more happier than unhappy. I am sure that deep down, you probably feel the same or something similar....

*hugs*

[talktooloose.livejournal.com]

Yes, these are good summations or my feelings, too.

The balance sheet approach to life is important to me. What's frustrating is that it is not completely effective and the self-doubt and worry come back. Of course, what is it I'm asking for? To have my spontaneous emotional responses excised? Hey, I need those!

[rcornelius.livejournal.com]

Well I like the balance sheet approach to life as well. But I don't think that I would use it to 100% I personally need to leave room for feelings :) And sometimes I even acknowledge them as also being important ;). Just as the numbers never tell the whole story, I also believe that being fine is more than just a state of mind.

But I do know that if I left that everything was fine all of time, I would never aspire to get to the next level of happiness and contentment.