#when they work in the high paying occupations of grad student med student and underpaid non-profit worker (aspiring grad student)

[softfists]

I feel like I should be more bummed out about not having my parents at my thesis defense or graduation but actually I'm more preemptively annoyed about them being upset when, months from now, they discover I invited them to neither and then moved across the country to start a new job which I have also not told them about. In my defense, I have zero confidence they'd behave themselves at a professional event. And while I'm not a hundred percent certain telling them I'm moving to a city where my very religious, abortion-clinic-picketing aunt also lives would lead to her showing up at my workplace trying to get me to detrans, the fact that the possibility of this is not zero is good enough reason for me to STFU until they find out themselves from, idk, LinkedIn.

I don't even feel sad about them anymore, just exhausted. Over the past few years, my sadness has broken through the other side into apathy and simmering bitterness. Keeping them at arm's length at least ensures I'm mad about it less often. So now I'm in this strange emotional liminal space where I don't particularly care about having a relationship with them anymore but also think cutting them off would be too extreme in case they eventually do come around, so instead I just engage in the minimum amount of contact necessary and keep lying about how I can't visit them because my passport is expired/my advisor won't let me/I just need to finish the next paper/etc.