I drove to NY on Tuesday with LittleMichigan, and we were peas and carrots the whole time. We haven’t had alone time like that since pre-Covid! It was really wonderful bonding time with my youngest daughter.
We stayed at my oldest nephew’s apartment, and went to see a play called Alice by Heart where he was AMAZING. It was opening night and we really enjoyed it.
On Wednesday we went to brunch with my sister, her 11-year old son, my daughter and my oldest nephew again.
My sister had me stressed out in a second. She found a hair in her food, received an entirely new meal, and then refused to leave a good tip, saying that the waitress “did all right” and didn’t need a tip.
She complained loudly about her ex being ill with cancer, and how she forgave his $24,000 back payments for child support. She thinks it was unfair that she is expected to be a parent while he has done nothing, and now that he has cancer, he probably never would. It sounded like she was saying that his death was going to be a terrible thing because she will never get any money. Ugh.
She told me that she shared over the phone with our mom that I might have esophageal cancer. I was not happy about that because, I have no confirmation of that and I have my consult next Monday! Anyway, she said that my mom was like, “oh, well, I need to get my stuff from her!”
This confused me because my brother and my mom were just here, but apparently my mom has some stuff missing, like her headboard and bed supports. This irritated me because MisterMoonbeam said that when they were loading up the moving truck, he pointed out the headboard to my brother, and he said it wasn’t hers, and my mom was really thorough about what was hers and what wasn’t.
I told my sister that she could relay that they were welcome to come back and get whatever she was missing, but I wasn’t going to worry about it. When I finish emptying my garage, if anything is here, it’s getting donated. Their oversight isn’t my problem.
Sigh.
My oldest nephew left after the meal, and my sister immediately confided that her daughter had gotten fat. My own daughter recoiled and I stared at her, like what? She said that she’s lazy and doesn’t want to work weekends, and that she’d been eating lots of trash food and was fat now. I was like, wait, doesn’t she go to college during the week, and work nights to close at the fast food restaurant? And play softball for scholarships that pay for her college? Shouldn’t she be allowed to have downtime on the weekends??
My sister said, no, she was lazy and fat. That my niece needed softball pants and some new headlights for her car that cost $100, and my sister had to buy them, which was bullshit, and that my niece should be working more to afford her own shit.
I told my sister that sorry, I disagreed, that those sounded like parent-purchases to me, which made her really mad. Then my young nephew piped up and said, “My sister is fat?” OMG, her head whipped around and was like, “Oh, no, I didn’t say that, she’s fine.” I guess she didn’t like how that sounded coming out of his mouth.
LittleMichigan and I left and went to lunch to meet my niece. Lol We didn’t tell her about what her mom had said about her weight. She had not gained any, that we could see. She’s not willow-thin, but she is not overweight AT ALL. She’s 19 and looks just fine!
I asked her about her schedule and she said she has 19 credit hours and she’s working most nights to close to make sure she can afford her car insurance and cell phone and food. She has softball practices before work and sometimes her work interferes and she misses. Games are on Sundays and she can’t miss practice or she gets benched, and if she’s benched, she can’t get scholarships. She sees her girlfriend (who goes to another college a couple of hours away) on Saturdays. She says her mom expects her to work early mornings and then go to school as well. My niece is a straight A student, but holy fuck. She deserves a day off! She admits that she’s struggling to get essays written on time but she has managed to do it all so far. She’s graduating in the Spring and needs to decide where to transfer, and she wants to go to the same college as her girlfriend, but isn’t sure about her major yet. Right now it’s Humanties.
Shit like this upsets me. I gave her some cash (today is her birthday) and we talked about other things.
My daughter and I drove home last night.
Overall I think it was a good trip, though a fast trip. The overall theme was about how broke and disillusioned the 19 to 25 year old young adults are right now. I felt pretty helpless to hear them speak about how hard they feel they work for not enough money, and how sometimes they don’t have money for food. LittleMichigan was in tears a couple of times. Actually, my niece was as well. They all feel that they work more and they can afford less than the last few years, and they don’t see a way to improve that. My nephew and his husband told us about their rent struggles and how nothing is affordable.
I told them all to please reach out and I would try and help them if I could. When we got to my house, my daughter took one of my cat carriers to borrow, as I had figured out there was a low-cost shot clinic being held by the humane society next week, and she is going to take her cat to it since it needs to get up to date on rabies and distemper. I also gave her a Hello Fresh meal, as she gets paid on Friday but didn’t have food for dinner Thursday - today.
I really did feel helpless. I’m going to think on this. I have to say when I was doing my Blessing Box, this population was my least served. If I saw people in this age range, they were without kids and their main requests were always food, tampons, laundry pods and toilet paper. They weren’t on food stamps and not utilizing food banks. They were working and extremely stressed out. But I didn’t see many of them.
