I invited my cousin to come visit us for Christmas. After doing so she informed me that she will be spending half the time with the relatives I don’t speak to.

Yesterday she texted me that she needs money to get an ID card because otherwise she can’t get on the plane. In like 48 hours.

She knew she didn’t have an ID card before I bought the plane ticket. She could have brought up the fact that she didn’t have an ID nor money to replace her ID then. Instead she waited until late last night.

I’ve already done a bunch of physical labor preparing for having a guest. With sending her money for the ID and buying her Christmas presents and the plane ticket… I’ve sunk about $1,000 into this visit. That I get half of because she wants to go see the relatives who hate her and do nothing but talk shit about her.

And maybe she won’t be able to get an ID in time? I can’t find indication online for how long it takes in her state. It just says, “You’ll receive your ID after paperwork has been processed.” Does that take minutes? Hours? Days? Weeks?

I feel like of course this is how it is going. How could I have expected someone in my family to behave otherwise?

This is why Noah is so fucking miraculous to me. He’s the only person who makes commitments and shows up more than 95% of the time. Everyone else… I’m shown exactly how little of a priority I am.

I spent 10 months of my personal fun money on this visit. That may end up not happening. Because she didn’t want to tell me weeks ago that she couldn’t get on a plane.

This is why I don’t ask people for time or attention. This doesn’t actually surprise me.

I feel sad. I feel like of course this is how I’m being treated. This is how important I am. I’m not.

In other news I told the kids that they need to actually do their chores without me nagging and being a bitch before they get their computers back and we’ve had more than 24 hours off the computer and miraculously… they are getting along better. We’ve had less fighting in the past 24 hours than we’ve had in while. And things were on an upswing between the kids. So that’s awesome.

We saw Star Wars yesterday as our advent activity. Noah asked for it. Given that mostly the advent calendar is about what I or the kids want…. yes Noah we can totally go see Star Wars with you. It was sweet listening to his reactions.

And this morning we laid in bed and talked for a long while. It was so lovely.

It is hard that talking to Noah feels like basking in the sun. When he doesn’t have the time or energy to spend on talking I feel like the sun has gone away and I will never be warm again.

I know I can’t pin him down and demand hours of talking every day–he’s too busy for that. But it’s hard doing without it. I feel like I wither.

I try not to be too controlling with it though.

So then I get into this space where I don’t feel like I can ask for anything because asking is controlling, right?

Such a cluster fuck.