Weekly update 12
Uncle Tony/TJ update - Uncle Tony seems way more comfortable with me, and excited to hang out with me now. I’ve also realized, when uncle tony says TJ is a “good” kid, he does not mean that TJ isn’t drinking and smoking or skipping school. This is the wrong spectrum of “good”. He is actually talking about good vs evil. He has spent his most prominent, formative years around evil. When he says TJ is good, he means that TJ is not evil in the moral/biblical sense. TJ wouldn’t intentionally hurt, cheat, or even kill anyone. Everything else is a bonus in Uncle Tony’s eyes.
TJ, I need to look for summer programs for him, he was sad, moody over spring break because he was sitting at home all day. He needs structure. The challenge with summer programs, he is not “competitive” so he is not gonna be applying to any selective programs. He’s 17 so most of the programs with “structure” is aimed at younger kids, he should be old enough to be independent at this point. (this is probably why the military is so good for some people, its the only time in adulthood where you can get so much structure forced upon you.) Culturally, he is “lower class” in that his parents drink and do drugs and are divorced, but his dad has money, and the rest of the family is middle upper class in expectations and behavior. All these things factor into his extracurricular programs. So anyways, the current plan B is Habitat for humanity (kinda far, but they build stuff like houses 2x a week) and pcc class (maybe automotive tech or whatever TJ finds fun and interesting, take it pass fail?).
TJ - My relationship with him is okay, but I think the concrete impact on one aspect of his life - grades - has not changed much. He continues to get bad grades at school for various reasons. I am hoping that there is still positive impact regardless of the end result, I am hoping that it is still worth something for TJ to struggle and fail but know that he has support. He has said before, like last summer? that no one cares about him. I’m unsure if he believed it when I said that I care about him. He definitely didn’t believe it when I said other people in the family like Uncle Sean care about him. Uncle Sean cares a lot, hes just really bad at it. He just like, nags and stuff, which I understand, but TJ genuinely hates his guts.
Been off my game the last few weeks, I have not been maximizing my facetime with my family. Most recently, I was hanging out at grandma’s house and did not ask uncle tony how his bodyweight exercises have been. I need to go back to being more deliberate with my agenda before see people.
Other things - I was feeling down on Monday, in a way that consumerism wouldn’t fill, either food or shopping wasn’t gonna fill. So I played basketball, which did the trick, but it was so tired that tuesday and wednesday I couldn’t get a good lift in, totally derailed my fitness for the week. Do I need a different activity? maybe go back to doing a lot more street photography on my own? (which is way more time consuming).
My mom said, 1. i’m using her amazon card too much, 2. she’s worried about stagnation in my career. I didn’t respond directly. I sent her my blog and told her to read it. I can’t really engage with her about my life path unless she has some grasp of the things i’ve discussed in the blog. I also have no faith that she will understand any of it.
My parents are coming back around april 25/26, I am going to Wisconsin around may 14, and possibly Vietnam afterwards. Maybe I should start working on my resume.