Weekly Update 9

long because its been a few weeks

Uncle tony timeline

CNY, Chelsea found morphine and Ativan in the living room at Grandma’s house, left over from grandpa’s hospice 2 years ago. Unsure what it was doing there, but suspicions of uncle tony taking it, she took it. later that day, he texted her to ask her if she knew what happened to it, confirming that he was taking it. Unsure what was in those bottles, Grandpa did not have a whole bunch of medications (most were tossed out), unsure if uncle tony was refilling them with other drugs or what. (This is why its important to be in people’s homes, to have people in your home. Glad Chelsea pushed to have CNY at grandma’s house, this was how I helped tj sort out his room situation, this is also how Ethan felt comfortable enough to come to me for help. It is so important to be in each others homes, if even for 5 minutes every few months)

Related - Several months ago, uncle sean and uncle andrew were talking about the general state of uncle tony, and called me to help do something about uncle tony’s declining cognitive abilities, relate to his alcohol (and possibly drug usage)

So, at this point, my dad calls uncle andrew over to discuss what to do with uncle tony as a family. Theres 2 things going on. 1. professional help for addiction. 2. big lifestyle changes.

lifestyle changes - His circle of friends are not the best influences to begin with. He has said that he doesn’t really like to hang out with them much anymore, they are stuck in the past, they aren’t the kinds of people who he finds interesting anymore. I imagine this directly related to the fact that the thing they bonded over is gluttony and vice. The kinds of people who engage in these things for several decades tend not to be the most interesting, or “good” people. I don’t think he has realized that much, that spending your weekends for years drinking, smoking, partying results in a dull life when you are 60. But, anyways, he feels that he has outgrown his friends, and he doesn’t work much anymore( business is slow), so he likely just gets bored at home and drinks, scrolls tiktok, and possibly even takes drugs recreationally. Drinking/drugs alone is worse than doing it socially. So, lifestyle changes we can help him with, just be in his house more often, do more stuff with him (be his friend), and see if we can get him to get some sort of exercise routine. Eventually, it would be good for him to find new friends and pick up some hobbies that give him more meaning and purpose beyond drugs and alcohol.

Professional help for his addition - He is an alcoholic. He has been for decades. He cannot quit by himself, neurologically, chemically, hes wired to be an addict. We don’t know how to get him professional help. Participating in the lifestyle changes will inform us in the path to getting him professional help.

Davison and sidney mentioned that we have a lot of problems as a family. I countered that we don’t. It only seems like it for a few reasons. We have a bigger family (problems per capita is similar), we are more involved in each others lives (so many people keep problems to themselves or within their nuclear family), and lastly, our family tends to run toward smoke as opposed to run away. We see smoke and search for the fire, other people see smoke and look the other direction. Sidney agreed with what I said.
It is a good thing that it feels like there’s always problems in our family. It means we are involved, it means we are trying to be better.

In the last couple weeks, what I’ve done is gone to grandma’s house a few times to watch basketball games. oh my god it is getting boring, but also, thank god my family likes basketball, thank god its so easy for me to just show up and watch basketball without much fanfare. Normie shit is inherently normie, but also, low stakes things that make it easy to bring diverse people together tends to be normie shit. Lowest common denominator.

And I took uncle tony to a power lifting gym (very cool gym, mission fitness, he says he doesn’t like LA fitness and stuff, highkey racist saying he doesn’t wanna workout with sweaty mexicans lmao, but also he doesn’t like the “normies”-my word not his but thats what hes trying to articulate), he still has the muscle memory of weightlifting back from his high school days. The issue is that he is too weak, he could just lift the bar but I think that would hurt his ego, so take a break on lifting for now, revisit in a few weeks. He said he was way too sore, bedridden for a few days after lifting with me. This was hard for me, this was a setback to my grandmaster plan to get him back in the gym, but of course plans never go without setbacks. Instead he says he is working on bodyweight exercises to get ready to go back into the gym (Idk how well hes doing, or how often hes doing it but he does seem motivated to get back into the powerlifting gym) and we did one successful 2.5 mile hike. I thank leilani’s fitness journey for giving me that idea of urban hiking. There are so many hikes around the eastside, around 2-4 miles, and interesting and stimulating for the easily bored and novelty seeking. I figured, if its enough to keep leilani engaged, it should be good for uncle tony, so we just did debs park, 2.5 miles, and uncle tony enjoyed it a lot. We’re going to a different hike next sunday. (Also, I think it helps that i’m generally well liked, and that I can, at great emotional labor, converse with nearly anyone for an hour or two, social versatility is so important, being perceived as cool has been so helpful in my work with my family, doing cool single uncle shit has been a worthy investment in myself)

I’ll delay my trip to Vietnam until I feel like I’ve made some progress on uncle tony, “phase 1” if you will

Other things, the week before CNY is the anniversary of grandpa’s passing, this is the 2nd anniversary and it was a big deal to grandma that we get together for it. She was in a good mood this year, as opposed to last year where she was very moody.

CNY was good, I played photographer at the temple, which made grandma more uncomfortable, she generally doesn’t like me around the temple, its messy and political, and she said to me that its a place for old retired people, not for young ambitious people. She actually told me to stop being there after this CNY. But I don’t think she understands that I only show up every few months, and have very little time or energy investment into it. I just think its good to show up every once in a while, to kinda give a small boost to the temple that is the cornerstone of our cultural heritage.

Dharma - the indian idea of duty, or your responsibility/duty/role in the universe. This word keeps popping up in my head, it seems to be that my work with my family is fulfilling my Dharma, it must be. I am the only one that can do it, everyone else has tried and failed, or don’t even have the capacity to understand what is going on. So long as I feel like i’m fulfilling my dharma, I think I don’t feel bored. This is probably what has been behind my several week cycle of feeling bored and not bored.

and about family, its possible that uncle tony is the last piece. I’m uncertain of what other fires are in the family, but for now it seems like ethan, TJ, uncle tony are the major components. And if/when those major components no longer require so much time and emotional investment, possibly thats when I can move on to the next thing. This is probably why I moved home. It was hard to give a shit about anything in vietnam so long as I saw large cracks in our family. If those cracks are gone, then possibly the next important large piece for me to tackle is my own money/career.

Chelsea and sidney - Chelsea apologized a few days before sidney flew back for CNY about the purse or whatever, but then they got into another fight, superficially about something else (rupert tearing up chelesa’s stuff while sidney was away at mammoth) but the same underlying issues, chelsea feels like sidney is selfish or doesn’t think about the family or takes too much without giving enough back or whatever. I did get involved this time, attempting to be mediator, I don’t remember what I told chelsea, but I did text Sidney that there are a lot of underlying feelings behind all these arguments they have, and they need to discuss the underlying feelings and not the superficial things. I told Sidney that she should work towards having that discussion with chelsea. Sidney said its not fair that she has to initiate, thats so much emotional labor for her that she doesn’t have capacity for right now, that maybe she had capacity for a few months ago. I told her that it always feels like that, and you put it off for another few months, another year, and before you know it, you haven’t spoken to your sister for a decade. This much she agreed on. It really is hard to have sidney move so far away, and marry into such a different culture and live a different lifestyle. Its harder to deal with sidney and chelsea, they are more complex people with bigger ego’s, and I am so much closer to them. (another reason I think its good that I’m generally well liked, I am on good terms with everyone, I am perceived to have some neutrality and impartial morality, I can make an attempt at mediating even chelsea and sidney and I didn’t get any pushback, but I didn’t pry very much)

My own things:

• I went to an indie music venue called zebulon randomly on a whim, I saw a band called caravan 222 and holy shit they are so good live. And holy shit are they so mediocre on spotify. I went back to see them at a bar in echo park, less good bc it was in a parking lot but still good. I’ll try to see them in a few months at the autry.

• Road trip, it was chill, nothing particularly notable other than I got sick. I went back to death valley, not much hiking left, i already did all the good hikes, so I just drove around and took pictures. I went to some hot springs (naked bath house with a bunch of old korean dudes). Alabama hills (very pretty but smaller than I expected). It was a lowkey trip, nothing super exciting, but it wasn’t bad.

• I got a smart watch to track my sleep because i think sometimes i have sleep apnea (i wake up from a bad dream, gasping for air at like, 3am sometimes). So far it hasn’t happened yet, but my heart rate is super low which is cool, sleeping low 40s, resting low 50s.