Well, it's been a long day. I've spent most of it working on the sweater for Mom, which is almost done except for sewing up the seams and the buttons (the latter of which isn't going to be happening because I am out of buttons). I at least want to be able to give it to her almost finished on the big day.

Which is why nobody's gifts have gotten wrapped, and that probably won't be happening until tomorrow. Ditto packing. Gee, let's hope Mom is late picking me up.

Incidentally, she's going on a psuedo-date tonight with her psuedo-boyfriend, and good LORD, she must have been a total pain in the ass as a teenager before a date. She kept calling me and yelling at me that she must have left certain clothes of hers here. I shudder to think of what she ended up wearing, since her "hot date" clothes were presumably in the spare closet here.

Of all of the weird situations I've been in in my life, the ones my mother gets into, and/or drags me into by default, seem to be taking the cake of late.

Here, for example, is one I don't know what to make of: she is going to leave early on Christmas Day to go see Dad and then have dinner with Mauricio.

She did not insist that I go along with her. At all. By which I mean, I found out rather after the fact that it had been planned for me that I'd stay at my aunt's and they'd drop me off at the train station on the 26th to go back to the Bay Area. Not a word was spoken to me about it, not a guilt trip was dropped.

I do not know what to make of this.

I do not know whether or not I am okay with this.

I think I'm pretty shocked.

I'd never ask to do something like that. I am well aware of my familial obligations at this point in time, regardless of my personal feelings. I am well aware that (once again, for the tenth year in a row!) it may very well be Dad's Last Christmas For Realz This Time. And gee, Jen, wouldn't you feel GUILTY if you weren't there for Dad's Last Christmas?

Yes.

On the other hand...it's a shocking yet amazing gift that I'm not being guilted out the ass by Mom to join her. Who am I to throw that away when it's a bloody miracle that she'd come up with that in the first place?

Especially when all I can do any more there is to force myself to stay within the building that he's warehoused in. I can't even sit in his room any more, much less look at him, or coo over him the way I am supposed to.

If I'm going to be an asshole as usual, why the hell should I be there, she's probably thinking. Why don't I just leave her there?

Yeah.

On the other hand, there's the perennial Dad's Last Christmas guilt. And I will feel guilty if I am not there. I feel horrible that I don't want to beg and plead to be there. I know damned well that I am a Bad Child for not wanting to.

And yet, I feel guilty and shitty if I DO go there, and I still can't fake it till I make it any more.

I just feel guilty no matter what option I choose, and I don't know what to do. Either way, I'm an asshole at Christmas.

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