Parental Visit and a Mezuzah

Talked to my dad on Saturday night about him and my mom visiting. They are probably driving down to Florida on Christmas, so they can't visit on the way down (since we will be in the midwest visiting my in-laws on Christmas) but I suggested they come visit on the way back up, which they probably will. So now they might visit on New Years Eve or the day after. Not sure if they will be staying overnight here or not- I invited them to, and told them I could find kosher food and sealed plates and utensils for them and whatnot, and my dad responded he would "take that under advisement" which I guess means see what my mom wants to do. He mentioned something about my mom wanting to check out our new house and I joked about how I'm cleaning frantically for their visit.

One weird note of our conversation- my dad asked if he could bring us a mezuzah as a house warming present. For non-jewish readers, a mezuzah is this little box (usually fancy) that has some torah passages in a scroll rolled up inside, and jewish people put this up on the doorway on the entrance to their house (very religious jews like my parents put it up in every doorway IN their house too). Here's a picture of one I found on the internet:

It's basically supposed to protect your house from bad luck and/or the "evil eye" (Ayin harah) jewish people worry about, and when a family has a run of bad luck, people are all like "Check your mezuzahs" to make sure a word isn't mispelled in the scroll. Cause, god gets pissed when you misspell words in your magical door scroll and causes everyone in your house to die and break their legs and have miscarriages and get fired from their jobs and shit. God is pretty much a douche like that.

Anyways my dad is like "Can I bring you a mezuzah, would that be pushing my religion on you." And I was basically like "umm, no, we dont really want a mezuzah and yeah that's kinda pushing religion." and my dad was like "well I'll have to think of something else instead."

So one sour note to our conversation. There's a reason I've been keeping my distance from my parents for several years, and it wasn't just because they disapproved of me and didn't come to my wedding. It's cause of stuff like this. I want to talk to my parents, sure. About neutral things that don't involve religion. I don't want them bringing me religious artifacts to stick on my front door, or trying to kiruv me, or asking me if I'm doing anything for jewish holidays, or trying to convince me to circumcise my future children, or anything involving religion. It's like one massive jewish guilt trip. Plus it's just plain awkward to be like "No, please don't bring me an expensive box of scrolls I don't believe were written by god to protect me from bad luck I don't believe exists." In not so many words.

It just worries me that now that me and my parents are getting a little closer after many years, the first thing they do is suggest some more religion.

I told this to B and at first he was like "sure they can bring whatever mezuzah they want" before I explained to him what a mezuzah actually is and how this would involve holes in our doorway and magical torah scrolls. I kinda think he would agree to it anyway to make my parents happy. He doesn't seem to think it's a big deal and was like "well you know one of the paintings we have has a bunch of religious symbols on it, how would this be any different?"

It's funny, on thanksgiving right after talking to my parents I was like "if my parents come we should take down the Christmas tree before they get here, cause that would be pretty shocking for them to see for their first visit to our house." And B was all "NO we can't change our house just for them!" Now a few weeks later, looking more and more like they ARE visiting, we still haven't actually put up our tree (mostly out of lazyness since it's up in the attic and we're not even going to be home for christmas) and B said something this weekend about how we definitely can't have the tree up when my parent's come here, at least not for the FIRST visit! :) And he's agreeing to mezuzahs without even knowing what they are... :) We agreed if my parents ask him anything when they are here and he doesn't understand what they are saying he should look to me first and not agree to anything. This will only be the second time B meets my parents- the first was at my PhD graduation in May 2010.

A thanksgiving miracle

Last night I was super sad about the fact that I'm not invited to my parents for thanksgiving. For years thanksgiving was always the one holiday I spent with my parents every year, since its the only holiday we both celebrate. When I was in grad school I went home every thanksgiving until I moved in with my husband in 2008 and felt I couldn't go to holidays at my parents if he wasn't invited. Since then we've been going to my in laws instead.

So today I called my dad and we ended up talking about that email exchange, which I ended up never writing back to. I told him it wasn't that the e-mail itself was hurtful, but that it was a reminder that we weren't invited for thanksgiving which was hurtful ( the email exchange was about my cousins wedding, which was last night. Since we wouldn't have had anywhere to go for turkey day, we went to my in laws and couldn't go to the wedding). He said If thats what was bothering me i should call my mom cause she is the reason were not invited. I was all "but she said if I married B. I should never call her again so I dont want to call her if she won't take my call." And he said that she said that because she was angry I got engaged but that sometimes people don't mean what they say when they are angry and I should call her if I felt up to it.

Anyway long story short I called my mom for the first time since 2008, and we ended
up talking for like an hour- not about religion or anything but just catching up, and I talked about my husband and gardening and school and about going to a grateful dead cover show with my provost, and it was just normal. It's a thanksgiving miracle! Oh and they might possibly visit us at the end of december if it works out with their travel plans! Trying not to get my hopes up too much for a visit in less than a month, but its a huge step forward.

I also called my grandmother and talked to her for a bit.

Response

Hi Abandoning Eden,

Perhaps we had a misunderstanding. I sent the info about the wedding because you two are part of the family, not to make you feel bad. Just the opposite.

Thanks for the invitation.

Abba

I don't even know what to do with this response. On the one hand, yay he just said B is part of his family!!!! That's the first time that ever happened!

On the other hand, well, I still have only talked to my mom once in the last year. And my dad is married to my mom and all. So I feel like this response is just a way of avoiding talking about our issues in the hopes they will go away. Which they clearly arn't.

Maybe I should be emailing my mom, not my dad. But I don't know. I feel like emailing her would be like begging to be let back in the family. The last time we had a *real* conversation was in November 2008, when she told me if I wanted to talk to her I can never mention B and I told her if that's the case than I can't call her anymore. That was the last time I called her. Then she sent me that nasty email in early 2009 about how if I marry B I can't have a relationship with her and I responded with an equally nasty email which she told my dad she thought was an "overreaction" (what's the appropriate reaction to your mom telling you if you get married to someone you love you can never talk to her again?). Since then we've only spoken 5 times- twice at family weddings (both times very awkwardly and not very much) once at my graduation (they came for the ceremony and left immediately afterward so I didn't talk to her much then since most of the ceremony I was busy ceremonizing), once when my grandfather died last year and I called my dad and she picked up the phone, and once this past April when I called my dad back from his twice-a-year phone call on erev pesach (and she got off the phone within two minutes).

So anyway, with all that, I feel like emailing her would be like I am "apologizing" for getting married. Which I most definitely am not. And I don't want to beg to be let into the family.

Plus, there's this other thing- I always end up feeling bad about myself when I talk to my mom. Or at least I did in the past (it's been so long I can hardly remember, ha!). When my mom disowned me, I didn't make a big deal about trying to change her mind and was more like "WELL FUCK YOU TOO" (in not so many words). And that was partially because for years we had a contentious relationship- pretty much ever since I decided to go to grad school in college.

And in 3 years of not talking to her, I feel great! It's like my self confidence has improved 1000%. And I think some of that is..well, when I did talk to her she was always talking about my weight and how I should diet more, and always completely in denial about me not being religious and saying things like "where are you going for shabbas?" And she never wanted to talk about anything other than religion or how well I was doing at school. Even before B- for instance before I moved down south to a musical wasteland, I used to go to concerts almost every weekend. And she never wanted to hear about that because she disapproved of me going to concerts (since it's not a torah lifestyle type thing). And having someone a) always talking about how I need to go on a diet b) acts like my life choices don't even exist, and is so disapproving of my lifestyle she pretends like I'm living a different one she would approve of and c) making me feel like I must not talk about any aspect of my life other than school/going to the gym..well all these things is not good for ye olde self esteem.

So I don't know if I'm ready to reach out to my mom and start having a relationship with her again. I do miss having a mom. But as someone said in a comment in my last post- I don't miss my parents as THEY are, I miss having parents I wish I could have. My mom was at one point one of those parents- we were very close until I became openly not religious. But based on evidence thus far, she's not going to be that mom that I want, ever again. Then again, we basically haven't talked in 3 years, so maybe she's changed? Probably not though.

Meanwhile, things ARE still awkward with my dad, or at least that's how it seems to me. He never visits, he sort of giggles whenever he says anything about B, and he's only met B once- at my graduation- for about an hour. That's not normal, right?

And while he's thanking me for the invitation, he's not taking me up on it either.

So what do I do, do I write back and say basically what I just said here minus the part about my feelings about my mom (and also that it's not about the wedding invitation in particular, it's about the general awkwardness of everything always and I want to get past that), do I just count this as a victory and leave it at that and move on with my life pretending to have a normal relationship with my dad while continuing to not openly speak about this underlying awkwardness and oh, the fact that I never talk to my mom? Do I email my mom and attempt to "make up" with her, perhaps while simultaneously addressing some other long standing issues (like that this won't work if she continues being in complete denial about me and my life- but in a nicer way of saying it)?

Reaching out

It's been years since the last time I tried, so why not?

Got this email from my dad a few days ago about my second cousin's wedding:

Hi Abandoning Eden,

How's it going?

I wanted to keep you in the loop. D_, Cousin S_'s son, has planned a wedding to A_ the night before Thanksgiving day. The invitation sent to us was to Mom and me "and family." (I'm not sure if that includes you or not.) My sister, Aunt T, is writing me that she is planning to fly in from Israel to attend this wedding. She will be staying for 2 weeks.

All the best,
Abba

Just sent this reply:

Hi Abba,

I'm sure when S_ sent an invite to you and "family" she included me. Because I AM part of your family! And so is B, whether you want to admit it or not. :) (if your daughter and son in law aren't included in "and family" then who is your family?). S_ and D_ probably know about me being married, since we're facebook friends and all.

But unfortunately we already have plans to visit my in-laws for Thanksgiving. Plus what would we do for Thanksgiving the next day? Unless you're inviting B and I over for Thanksgiving. :)

Speaking of which, when are we going to get over all this awkwardness about B already? Yeah I get it, you didn't condone my decision to marry B, but it's done, we're married, so what, now we're just going to talk like twice a year for the rest of our lives and never see each other again? And mom's never going to talk to me again? What's the point of that exactly? I mean I'm just as stubborn as you and mom are, and I'm sure we can both keep up this stand-off indefinitely, but it seems kind of silly. I'm never going to convince you that religion is wrong and you're never going to convince me that religion is right, and we can't travel back in time so that you come to my wedding, so why don't we just accept that we made different choices in life and that's ok? Can't we get along and have a normal relationship despite our different religious beliefs, so that you won't have to wonder whether your daughter is part of your family or not?

You should come visit us sometime, you and mom have an open invitation.

-Abandoning Eden

I predict my dad will reply with some sort of lecture about how important their religion is and they can't condone my decisions blah blah blah. But maybe he'll surprise me.

What do my mom and the Westboro Baptist Chuch have in common?

Hint: Watch around the 5:20 mark

I say my mom and not my parents, because I've actually been talking to my dad on a fairly regular basis lately via email (I have not talked to my mother since erev pesach in April, when I called my dad back and she picked up his cell phone and talked to me for all of 30 seconds. Before that the last time I talked to her was last year October when my grandfather died and she again picked up my dad's cell phone.)

During Hurricane Irene me and my dad seemed to have gotten back in touch, as he commiserated over his destroyed basement/breakaway shul (message from god?). While emailing back and forth several times I asked him about a few things that have been bugging me that only a parent can know..like for his perspective on what happened when I was in first grade and was hit by a teacher in school, which I've been thinking about lately. Maybe I'll write a post about that at some point.

He called me on erev rosh hashana for one of his 3 annual phone calls (erev rosh hashana, erev pesach and my birthday) and I managed to steer the conversation entirely clear of religion until the very last minute when he had to go. He called me between appointments- which he always does, so there's always a limit on our convo time, boo. But we actually talked almost 25 minutes last week on the phone.

Anyway at the very end of the convo he told me that "Well we wish you AND B a gmar chasima tova" (and he emphasized the "AND B"). I told him he should call me sometime when it's not erev pesach or rosh hashana or my birthday.

Progress? Some weird bizzaro progress, in which my dad acknowledges B but still tries to push his religion on both me AND him now? Who knows?

Meanwhile since we are back in touch a bit, and my department is having a "better know your professor" contest which includes baby pictures of us, I was able to get my dad to send me quite a few pictures of my childhood via email. So yay!




Me circa 1985