A house we love, Uncle Armando, and cognitive behavioral therapy

[bucketlistpanic]

Jan showed us a house on Tuesday that we really liked. Colin wants it, but he wants to wait to find out when the owner plans to move out. I don't think we should wait to get started on that pre-approval letter. I didn't tell Colin that though, I should. I will. Anyway, the house has a basement, three bedrooms, a bathroom with a tub, central air conditioning, a nice yard, and it's up-to-date. Colin is confident we can afford it, we just have to grab it before someone else does. I'm full of hope but trying not to set my heart on it.

Tomorrow I'd like to call my dad, sister Autumn, and brother Isaac. Dad, because I have to call him once a week or he gets mad. Autumn, because we haven't talked in a while and she has experience buying houses. Isaac, because we also haven't talked in a while and I want to let him know we'll be moving up there if he hasn't already heard. I also have to break it to my dad that Colin and I don't want to visit with my uncle Armando. Uncle Armando is moving to Texas, and my dad thought it would be nice to have one last visit with him. The problem is that Uncle Armando is a jerk, a jerk to me and a jerk to Colin, a jerk to my mom, and a jerk to everyone really. I have been doing my best to avoid him for most of my life. On days when I have had to see him, I well up with anxiety, because he's such a hot-head and anything could set him off. It makes everyone uncomfortable, and I've explained this to my dad before and my dad always just says "But he's family."

Less than a week left to prepare for this trip to Gen Con. Tonight I'll look through my old papers and notes on cognitive behavioral therapy. One exercise I remember is to write down and imagine the worst possible things that could happen, then read it back and pick it apart rationally.

Comments

[thewayne]

Definitely work on that ore-approval process! That's the best way to be able to make an offer the instant the house goes up for sale, and if you can establish a relationship with the seller, it might not even go on the market and you might be able to nab it before other people start bidding on it if they like you!

I know too many people like your uncle, and there's too many other people not like your uncle: why should we spend time with toxic people? There's so little hope that we can help them to improve if they don't want to, and it just hurts us and leaves us wounded, there's simply no point. I'm solidly in your corner for avoiding your uncle. I expect he'll be quite happy in Texas. Sadly, I'm going to be seeing a lot of the red neck side of my families this weekend for the funeral, which includes Texans, but I expect people to be on their best behavior and not arguing politics.

While I knew of CBT, I've never done it (my issues would be better handled with talk therapy/counseling). My wife's never gotten into a lot of the details of CBT, but that sounds like an excellent exercise!

If you see a table advertising Flying Buffalo products: mainly the Tunnels and Trolls RPG and the Nuclear War card game, that's the game company that I worked for. Up until this year it was the oldest self-owned hobby game company still in existence, the owner passed a couple of years ago and his sisters sold the company a month or two ago. But at least it's being kept pretty much intact.