Holiday time and family time

NOTE:

This will be my last fully written post of the year.

With Xmas approaching and then New Years, things will be busy here.

Also, I'm not getting back to work on the project I started (info in the new year?) until the girls go back to school, so I will be taking some time off and just hanging with them as well.  Which means I will be at my keyboard a lot less.

Worry not; I will be jumping on here and there to upload pics and other Holiday funniness and funness.  

We all wanted to take this time and a moment to thank you all who have read or are reading.  For visiting us here.  For following along on our adventures.  Happy Holidays.  Merry Christmas.  Happy Hanukkah.  Best and happiest New Year and all the rest.  We will be back in 2023 with another (we hope) 100+ journal entries and adventures to share.  

Thanks and now... On to the main event!

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Christmas as a family this year.

Yet, a Christmas alone.

Christmas was an event when I was growing up.  Family always got together.

Now, however, I don’t have family.  I have J and Kiddo. 

We are estranged and outside of those people.  For J and myself, I don’t mind.  In fact, I don’t really care.  For Kiddo, however, this breaks my heart. 

My family has issues with me, my life, and the choices this family made.  They have issues with J and her choices and family and a lot of other issues.  

They used those excuses to make us outcasts and color us as black sheep.

In all of this, however, they seemed to have forgotten Kiddo.  I’m sure my bro, Grub, can relate to that feeling, of being forgotten and cast aside; and yet, here we are, cast aside and forgotten by him as well.  And my sister.  And friends of mine that they have told their lies to and poisoned the well of those friendships.

The cruel reality of it is this;

They will never see us again, including Kiddo, and they somehow seem to have found a way to paint us as the bad guys.  We left them “unaware” and caught them “flat-footed” in our leaving.  Even though, in the four months leading up to taking the job we let them know about every application, interview, follow up interview, negotiation, and everything in-between.  This included website links and promotional information on the schools and cities we were looking at.

How then, they were left uninformed and flatfooted is beyond me.  

Then, to add insult to injury by asking if we would “eat dog” (yes, a direct quote) and how we would get around without bringing a car- “what are you gonna do, ride around in rickshaws”.  So, racist on top of insulting.  

Then we set boundaries.  “We’re the grown ups and adults here.  You don’t get to tell us what to do.”  Yes!  It’s our life, our choices, and our child.  We DO get to make those calls.

When an apology was asked for… “What do WE need to apologize for?  YOU’RE the ones taking away our babe!”

OK!  Well, she’s your granddaughter, not your babe.  She is our babe.  

Yes, to be fair, there is a LOT of history to go with this.  However, it just was all a lead up to this moment and this break.  It wasn’t any one thing, but a lot of little things, most of them just like above.  Them telling us what to do because they are the “adults”.

Adults know how to apologize… and mean it.  Not, “we are sorry for whatever it is you think we did wrong.  Do we still get to FaceTime with Kiddo on Saturday.”  Again, direct quote.

The apology given was-- “Whatever you THINK we did.”  NO! 

Recognize your part.  Your faults.  Your greed.  You're thinking that you can tell us what to do with our lives, family, and future.  And then apologize like you mean it or, at least, like you would like a relationship with your only blood granddaughter even if you don’t want one with J and myself.  

You have refused, time and again, to do that.  

So, here we are.  Estranged and half a world away.  Without contact.  Not with any of them.  They, in their anger and hate, have poisoned those relationships and taken way my sister (no loss, don’t like her anyway), my bro (who doesn’t like me, so that is another thorn in an already prickly relationship) and a number of my friends and other family members.  

And let me just ask this… For my constant readers.  You’ve seen the blog.  Read those words.  Seen the pictures.  Seen Kiddo vlog.  Short of my stabbing a family member in the neck, what would it take for you to give up on Kiddo?  Because, seriously, outside of someone stabbing J in the neck on purpose, I don’t think you could get me to give up on Kiddo.

The end result is that Kiddo will have only J and myself this year for Xmas.  No Mimi.  No PopPop.  No Uncle Grub.  No Aunt JellyBeans.  

All because we (J and I) at the ages of 40+ and 30+ decided to make a different and new life.  One that they didn’t want and refuse to accept.  And that’s fine.  Only, they paint US as the selfish ones and the ones who have done wrong.

Why is my only wonder.  

I can imagine fear.  I can imagine uncertainty.  Racism, certainly (as the above clearly paints as true) is part of it.  

But….

To throw away Kiddo because of that.  To throw away your son.  To throw it all away instead of fighting for her, for us, for a new and exciting life and chapter.  It is, truly, unforgivable.  

So, we’ve stopped waiting and hoping on an apology.  We’ve moved on… From America, from them, from that life.  In its place, we have this.  This adventure.  This experience for ourselves and Kiddo.  For our future.

Alone.

No Christmas miracle.  No Christmas cheer.  At least, not from them.  And I’ve written before about there being two sides to every story, but in this case, they refuse to see ours, even though we’ve tried to talk to them about theirs.  

We have each other.  We have this life and adventure.  They have their bitterness and loathing, be that self or outward.  They have their cowardice.  They have whatever life they have left.  Only that is a life without me (no big loss), but it’s also without Kiddo.  

It will be a different Christmas for us this year.  We don’t need to coordinate FaceTime or other events.  We get to focus on Kiddo and love and joy.  They will sit around and again complain about what we "took" from them.

Let’s go, Kiddo… We’ve got a life to live, not a life to complain about.  We have a holiday to celebrate.  We have a lot to see and do.  Most importantly, we have each other.  We, Mumma and Dada both, love you more than you know and we are truly sorry that others would rather hate than love, but you will always only know love…. At least from us.