Complicated

 A recent ex proposed, in exasperation, why all the men in her life were/are crazy (clearly I was in the frame). I responded, perilously, "What's the common denominator?" I've thought about that conversation more than a few times, including the danger inherent in the question. However, it also makes me think about my relationship with my parents. The other day, 12 November, was my mom's birthday, and I posted this picture on Facebook. If someone were to ask me to define my relationship with my mother I would have said it was complicated. When I spoke at her funeral I, gently, described her as a complicated woman. If you were going to ask me to describe my current relationship with my father I'd doubtless say, complicated. It's not that I didn't/don't love them both - and I know they loved/love me - but the relationships were never as close or full as they should have been. And this brings me back to the anecdote that began this narrative. What's the common denominator? Obviously, it's me. Marcus Aurelius always reminds us that, before we turn our analytical lens on someone else, we need to start with ourselves. I don't know if I have a good answer, although I suspect that answer probably helps explain why I'm sixty-one and living alone in a one bedroom apartment. In my imagined universe I'm the one who gives more, who tries more, who forgives more, loves more, but maybe it's exactly the opposite. 

It's a picture I snapped from another picture, so it's more than a tad blurry, but the mood comes through. This was one Christmas in Atlanta, in the first house that Brenda and I owned out northeast of Atlanta. This picture is the rarity of all rarities: my mother and I are both smiling.