Anna

Expect me to use this icon if I bring up a conversation or experience with my cousin Ruth. For the record, we both agreed: she's Dorothy and I'm Alice.

And we both look good in blue.

Last family call my brother wasn't there. My uncle couldn't be there because my aunt is in the hospital. My mom had to bow out early to attend an afternoon event. So it was just the two of us.

Along with updating on our current lives (her job is good, her home life...well, it's home life; I'm not always coping with a war zone and horrific news in the healthiest of ways) we dished. I revealed some interesting tidbits about my first marriage (I'll spare you, but she hadn't known he was that big of an asshole). And then we got to talking about our moms.

Because it always goes there. I mean, both of us were emotionally neglected by our moms. She's estranged from hers. I'm not estranged from mine, but that takes a lot of boundary setting and enforcement. I was raised by a narcissistic mom, she was raised by a borderline mom. And I'm a borderline myself, albeit one with a fuckton of therapy under my belt and a smidgen of self-awareness, while my aunt has, as Kenneth Branagh so marvelously and bitchily put it in the film Peter's Friends, all the self-awareness of Zsa Zsa Gabor.

I don't know if we accomplish much, but we both felt better after.

Today my mom came up in conversation again. I mentioned to Eyal that I had played boys a couple of times for plays during elementary school. He was confused. Why would I play boys? I pointed out that it was because I could be counted on to remember lines, and had a boyish haircut.

He got mad.

"Why did your mom let your Bubbe cut your hair like that?" he growled.

"Mom said she had to pick her battles," I said. Which was true. Bubbe was giving my mom quite a bit of financial and other support. Money talks.

"This is a hill she should have died on," Eyal said.

Maybe so. But Bubbe was determined to spoil my looks. She refused to put sunscreen on me and cut off my blonde hair.

It must burn her that in Israel, I'm actually considered fairly pretty.

I thank heavens Ruth never went through any of that. Her looks were never in doubt. Unfortunately, our family neatly set up the "pretty one/smart one" rivalry. Took us until our twenties to realize what a bunch of shit that was.

Alice and Dorothy aren't any prettier or smarter than each other, after all. Just different. Similarly lost in worlds they don't understand, but entirely different people. I just wish that Oz and Wonderland were a lot closer.

As usual, weird dream last night. Twin Peaks was involved and I was desperately looking for Eyal. Fortunately I found him just before I woke up.

Also, there was something tugging at my memory. Vague impressions, more than anything else...but after a few minutes I left it alone and resolutely put my mind toward other things. If there's something mysterious I can't remember (as opposed to say, where I left my keys or where my phone is) I generally go on the principle that there's a good reason I'm not remembering it.

It's not that I think something horrible happened to me that I don't already know. It's just that if something weird is tugging at my memory, it's probably not worth the worry. I have enough problems. And there are plenty of things I don't remember that I am at peace with not remembering. Trying to plumb the depths of consciousness is, in my opinion, overrated. Some things are just better left unknown.

My therapist in the States rather acidly described psychoanalysis. "After seven years of therapy, people were just as miserable as they were when they started. But boy, could they tell you all about WHY they were miserable!"

Mind you, some people have suggested that I use my dreams as inspiration for my fiction. Um, no. That would give Cronenberg and Lynch a run for their money in the nightmare department. And people wonder why I never tried hallucinogens.

Anyway. Mental Health. The state of the Anna is okay, I guess? I'm accomplishing goals and getting shit done. That counts for something right? I still have the occasional bad day where I don't feel like much of anything, but I try to push through anyway. And I have lots of anxiety about this upcoming class, which starts Monday.

Wish me luck.