"Ten thousand afternoons ago / All my happiness just overflowed"

Purple Mountains, "All My Happiness Is Gone"

I like to think we all end up in a better place of our own choosing, eventually.

Blog activity is still light, despite the fact that I got back to South Korea last weekend.  I've worked out a few times and done two loads of laundry, so call that progress if you will.

America was a mixed bag, as always.  My dad is 90 now, and for obvious reasons it's getting more and more difficult to maintain healthy lines of communication, let alone a quality father-son relationship, with him.  I don't tend to get too personal on this here blog, but I'll be blunt -- a complicating factor is his live-in relationship with a highly toxic woman (nearly his age).

I mean, we're all assholes sometimes.  Lord knows I have my moments.  But I mean toxic in the fullest sense of the word -- poisonous, life-draining, harmful.  I'm guessing she's got some PTSD going on (she's a refugee from post World War II Germany) along with some serious narcissism and a very questionable relationship to telling the truth.

There's a lot more to say and nothing much at all, really.

Anyhow, for the second summer in a row, I cut short my visit and stayed in a hotel for my last two nights in Bellingham.  I knew I shouldn't let her get to me, but I did.  (In my defense, she threw a phone book at me.)  And here's the thing -- as long as my dad lives I'll never sleep in that house again.  (A house that me and my sister will have to deal with when the inevitable happens, and that I kind of want nothing to do with.)

Then there was Baltimore with my sister and nephew, and that was great as always.  We did stuff.  I did cannonballs onto said nephew in the swimming pool.  I walked a tiny but scarily energetic black dog around her neighborhood every morning for an hour or so.  We ate crabs and drank beer.  We watched the Orioles lose a ballgame 23-2 and stayed for the whole damn thing.  I watched my nephew ride and take care of great big horses.  My sister is dating a really nice guy and it might to lead to something more.

It was all good.

But this might be the time, when my contract ends in February, to head home.  It's way too much of a burden on my sister to deal with my Dad with only one visit from me every year.  If something terrible happens she'd be the "first responder," so to speak, and that's not fair to her and her quality of life and mind.  She's also devoted to a really great kid.

So what's my excuse?

We'll see.

Life is hard and complicated.  Our bodies and brains will break down no matter how hard we wish they wouldn't.

I mean, I should be grateful for my dad to be 90, when my mom left due to cancer at 50, right?