passenger seat stream of consciousness

On the road again. I will try my best to stay awake because we have to give Sheldon a bath as soon as we get home, and I don't want to fall asleep and then be wide awake after we bathe him. Plus, I'm usually zapped from conversations, but right now my mind feels clunky and I'm having a hard time processing the last few days. 

I have a lot of things to say about the last few days, but since I haven't been chronicling daily some of it is blurry. But there were some times that were so overwhelming for all of us that the rest of our hair might fall out from stress. 

There is always a lot of family decompression on the way home from visits with Peppy's dad and stepmom. This trip was especially difficult because my in-laws had been arguing over something in particular for a few weeks and we could immediately tell that the vibe was different than normal. Gage, who isn't really the best with reading a room corned me on Friday and said, "what happened while I was in the shower!?" because a huge argument happened in the few minutes he was gone. 

There were some pretty awkward points where I just had to walk away or go outside, because it felt like we were expected to take sides. I have no problem walking away when someone is acting irrationally. Or I'll just stare at them. I was recently told that I have the best poker face that anyone had ever seen. For someone that doesn't enjoy eye contact, if I do stare into your soul, you will be the first to look away. 

You will win the no blinking contest though. 

Everything in life is about compromise, and when you are almost 70 and still haven't learned that lesson, you are a control freak. While Peppy and I both grew up in with a controlling parent, I was taught to not ever complain, where Peppy grew up in a home that was critical of everyone and complained about everything. 

Peppy's uncle has promised the kids $200 if they ever beat him in arm wrestling. Gage actually has a set of weights in his room now in hopes of one day winning. They might beat him one day, but it sure wasn't this time. 

On Friday we went to Panama City and went to a little bakery and walked around a park on the bay. This was all my father-in-law's idea, in fact, a great argument was had at breakfast because he wasn't going to get his way. On our excursion he legitimately spent the entire time on his phone looking at old pictures. Peppy is a very nostalgic person and had already asked him numerous times on the drive over if he would stop showing him pictures from years ago because stuff like this make him sad. But you know, we can't control other people, and Brian continued to spend all day on his phone while the rest of us enjoyed each other's company. I'm not exaggerating at all when I say that man's phone appears to be welded into his palm. 

It is a bummer, because Peppy had a marvelous set of grandparents that were like parents to him, and I had involved grandparents as well. We have two wonderful children who are talented and smart, and instead of getting to know who they are as teenagers he insists on constantly reminding them of who they were when they were 5 and 8, or at least who he thought they were back then.  Peppy's stepmom is amazing though. She truly knows and understands her grandchildren. Peppy's dad wouldn't even listen to or like Gage's EP because he said it would "mess up his algorithm." That chipped away a tiny piece of my heart when Peppy told me that. 

I mean, really. Who doesn't support their own grandchild?
 

We walked some trails, went to the beach, went to a bakery where I was so embarrassed by the behavior of my in-laws that I went and apologized to the owner before we left. I didn't even realize I was capable of feeling embarrassed anymore. This was probably the most stressful trip we've ever had there. I've wondered many times how my in-laws have stayed married for close to 30 years, but this was different. It was like they both actively hated each other and didn't care who knew. 

This guy was on a street corner of Panama City dancing around with his sign. My MIL said he's often on the news and after all the complaining for 72 hours straight, it was nice to see some positivity. 

Looks a little like a blemmye.

One of the places we went to had a bunch of carved trees. This one was my favorite. 

I took this picture just to be petty I guess, but in the moment I was frustrated that we were doing the plan Peppy's dad insisted on, but all he wanted to do was scroll through his phone and look at old pictures. 

I kept saying, "hello, we are here. We are here and alive right now." But he didn't hear me. 

My MIL told me that I always "look so fabulous out of nothing," which is a very nice thing to tell me. I feel like I often look like pajama department Steven Tyler. Dream on, dream on. DREAM ON, DREAM ON. 

We did have a nice time Friday night. We enjoy playing games and had lots of fun playing charades and Catch Phrase. I don't understand why it can't always be like that when we visit. We have such limited time with them. 

I know trips like this always make Peppy miss his mom and Granny and Poppy, and it makes me wonder why the ones we supposedly love the most are the ones that we place unreasonable expectations on. Why the ones closest to us are the ones we hurt the most. 

Edit: Before I fell asleep last night I decided I would reread this post when I woke up and see if I wanted to revert it to a draft, but I decided after how few people read this blog, and how open my in-laws were about everything it would be ok to keep my fleeting thoughts. I'm not trying to say Peppy and I never argue, because that is not true at all, but if they knew they were in the middle of something that would be continued in front of their family for days on end, we should have just postponed. 

I'm also not trying to act like I hate Peppy's dad, because aside from one occasion where he went off on me, we have an easy relationship. He actually bought me this amazing smelling upcycled wine bottle fir tree candle from a hippie store called Little Village that we went in. It was a bit expensive, so I probably would never have purchased it myself, but he is always doing little gestures like that. He is just a difficult personality for me to be around for extended periods because our natural dispositions are like oil and water. I am an observer who rarely speaks in social situations unless I really have something to say (despite what the appearance of this blog may portray, and I absolutely loathe being around complaining, like it gives me anxiety to be around nonstop criticism and complaining) and he is much more extroverted and rigid in a way that is hard for me to relate to. I also left a home with a controlling parent, and so this always makes me feel like I'm a child again. Maybe I have PTSD. This blog post was just our weekend. It was stressful. It sucked. We were with people we love and in the middle of negativity for 72 hours. It didn't have to be that way.