Different

Sometimes it really does help just to do things differently. I drove a different way to Dallas, I left the TV off except for Meerkat Manor....(got to check in on the whiskers). I've eaten food I normally don't eat-not food I don't like, just not my first choice from a menu.

I'm dealing with the ever approaching demise of my laptop and the realization that I don't really care much for the desktop. I bought a Mac....something I've wanted forever. I need to keep a windows machine because a great deal of my marketable skills revolve around being current on office programs, but it doesn't have to be either or.

Sadly, I will have to hide the Mac. My brother KNOWS EVERYTHING about computers, even things that probably haven't been thought of yet. Ok, I am exaggerating-he is very knowledgeable, makes his living with them, and is a pretty nice guy. But if Bill says Mac is whack-then Daddy does too, and Mom ......yadda yadda.

So now comes the adult emotional intelligence-I know that I have every right to have a Mac....Bill is entitled to say "I wouldn't have one" and he will....but my elders will not be able to leave it alone, and from henceforth every computer related discussion will come around to "why did you......"

Now the sad part is not that I will hide my little Macbook. The sad part is realizing my parents have progressed to the point where it would truly upset them if they knew I had one. And even sadder that they truly are at a point where they need to be coddled.

But, the good news is I've realized coddling them doesn't have to mean not doing what I want to do-tried that-doesn't work for me.

What an awful thing it must have been raising me. I never do anything in the shadows, and they are the kind of people who really don't want to know.....I think we must have been meant to be together as sort of a yin/yang thing. Essentially, we are everything that annoys us in another human being-only we love each other and not just out of duty. Duty ended eons ago-now our interactions are voluntary and we all know it.

I kicked my own daughter to the curb for drug addiction-if I didn't want to take care of my parents, I wouldn't. Really, the only "have to " is the one that lives inside of me, and that have to is a want to. And they know all too well I don't follow rules and I don't do things I really don't want to do....I'm speaking of overall undertakings. In any undertaking is a series of unpleasant to downright repulsive tasks-but the overall outcome is what I base my decisions on.

I'm getting ready to pack up for the trip out to the snakes and then home-and I'm not a bit sad....Oh, I'd like to stay longer, but I know I can come back, and more importantly, I can pack up some things I've figured out and take with me.