Restraint of Tongue and Pen

Because I believe that the essence of my recovery is simplicity itself I will repeat this oft repeated fact: Family is hard.

We can jettison potential friends.  We can attend new meetings.  We can find different colleagues.  But we cannot deny blood.

On the golf course last week SuperK had what she thought was a productive conversation with my relative who is . . . ahem . . . flexible with her planning skills.  SuperK - god love her - stood her ground, insisting to my relative that she is indeed less than reliable, being as kind and diplomatic as possible.  True to form, as a good justifier, my relative was dumbfounded, arguing that this was simply not the case.  Clearly miffed, she let me know a few days later that from now on we would no longer be using the Catch as Catch Can formula -a formula we insisted on after having been stood up so many times - and would now be operating on a Firm Plans Only schedule. 

Here's the thing: SuperK and I would love to be on a Firm Plans Only schedule.  We're precise Germans.  And we have absolutely no problem with an occasional audible - everyone gets to change plans from time to time, even at the last minute, even for no good reason.  Nobody likes an inflexible dude.

Shortly thereafter my relative sends out an email to SuperK asking her to join two other women for a round of golf at a specific time and at a specific place.  Then she sends me a note asking if I'll be at my home at a specific time so she can stop by afterwards.  As you can imagine, neither event transpires.  The cancellations came at the last minute and had a lot of pretty complicated and implausible contingencies.  SuperK had gracefully pirouetted away from the round of gold, wise woman that she is, even though it cost her some emotional capital trying to figure out how to say Fuck Off diplomatically.  I took a nap and turned off my phone.

My relative wondered if she could stop by tomorrow at a specific time instead.  The woman has chutzpah, I'll say that.

"Sure," I said.  "I should be around."

Then I thought about following up with a "this is why we don't make plans with you" email.  Not angry in tone, not resentful, as neither of us had taken the very rotten bait this time, but explanatory in nature.  I feel taken advantage of and wanted to pass this info along - I'm dealing with someone believes that her time is much more important than my time is when the fact of the matter is that my time is really fucking important.  Everybody knows that.  

Restraint of tongue and pen.  I called my sponsor first.

I got to send precisely nothing.