Better

Yesterday was a disaster most of the way through. Woke up late to the beep beep sound of large vehicles maneuvering around the area, barely got the trash and recycling out, literally dragging stuff to the curb through lashing rain still half asleep while the truck rumbles toward me just a hundred feet away. I usually get up earlier because Jennie gets up earlier and I wake up when she’s in the shower, kind of automatically, the rushing of the water through the pipes functioning as my alarm clock. But yesterday Jennie didn’t have to wake up so: no alarm clock.

Jennie got calls from the home help about her parents — they’re old and we recently got someone to look after them for a few hours a day. So on her day off, when she’s supposed to try to be relaxing, getting into the christmas mood, she’s instead getting stressed out. Her father wouldn’t take his pills and when he doesn’t take his pills he gets angry, yells, hits.

Jennie said she had to go over to their house to fix things. Try to get her dad to take his pills. Get the Dad out of the bedroom for a little while too — the help wanted to clean the bedroom but couldn’t with him in there.

I got irritated with Jennie, lost my calm a little, and said that I was upset that she spends so much time caretaking her parents instead of living our lives together. We were going to do some last minute shopping, maybe even screw around a little during the day, just have a day together enjoying ourselves. We haven’t even been married a year and it’s like, our lives have become entirely focused on caring for her parents. I am good most of the time, supportive, but yesterday I said I was disappointed and I often felt like she loved her parents more than she loved me. I moved for us — I sold my own condo, bought us a house in a nice neighborhood in a nice town, helped her move, I shoulder the load financially, I cook and clean and manage home renovations, I do so much for her… and she focuses her time on her parents. She cares for her parents, I care for her. It’s not right, I said. This is not right. You will regret all of this care. You will regret living your life for them instead of us.

What else am I supposed to do, she says. I can’t just do nothing, they need me

I need you too, I said. I married you because I need you, I said. What about my needs? The home help is there, let them figure it out. Why are you paying them if they can’t figure it out? And call your stupid brother to get your Dad to take the meds. I don’t know why this is on you.

She’s quiet for half a minute then the waterworks come on and she says things like “I don’t have a choice” and “I’m caught in the middle all the time” and finally ends up ranting, you know maybe I should just drive my car into the lake next time I’m on my way home just drive it into the river

I leave the room. I’m not going to listen to this. My mom used to threaten suicide on me when she felt lousy and needed attention or couldn’t get her way. I cannot listen to this kind of stuff.

An hour later she finds me and apologizes, she’s still crying and upset. I tell her to go take care of the stuff at the parents house if that’s what she needs to do. I warn her that since her dad is aggravated he might try to hit her. He tried to hit her last time he was in this state. She asks me to go with her and I said no, I said I just can’t, I can’t, I’m sick of this, it’s breaking me down and I’m out, I’m done with this caretaking shit.

I go to the gym and lift until my anger is out. I come home and eat a PB&J and fall asleep for half an hour. Jennie gets home at 5 and she says yes her dad hit her but then he felt bad about it and calmed down enough and took his pills. She’s triumphant, she feels she accomplished something important. I’m utterly deflated. Her happy attitude means that she enjoyed the experience — she got something out of it, she feels good about it, she’ll do this again. I can barely look at her.

I know I shouldn’t be this way. I know I should be supportive in her supporting her parents and I am most of the time. But it’s two days before Christmas and I’ve already given so much to her parents during the year. Must they take this from me too?

Later I make dinner. Shrimp scampi, garlic butter sauce, angel hair pasta al dente. I put on Ghostbusters, Jennie’s favorite movie. She quotes lines as the actors say them. I’m not hungry but I force myself to eat a small portion. Jennie’s relaxed and over the course of the movie I start to relax a little too. By the end I’m over the parent stuff. I’m commenting on the brilliance of the Stay Puft marshmallow man. I say the main reason Ghostbusters 2 didn’t do as well is because they didn’t have a ghost half as compelling as Stay Puft. We laugh together. We put on another bad movie after that, Subspecies 2, about Vampires. It’s terrible but in a good-bad way. We go to bed at 11 and she doesn’t mention her parents all night.

This is all it takes for me to feel better. Breaks from the relentless parent stuff.

One thing I like about writing on Open Diary is that basically nobody reads what I’m writing. I wrote a blog for a while and got a decent readership and the readership turned into something that felt stifling. I couldn’t admit to having negative emotions anymore — fear, anger, guilt. People would comment on my behavior in stupid ways: You’re a dick, why you treat your gf this way? Or the opposite. Your gf a beyitch, leave that CNT

Later I got death threats because I made anti-gun ownership comments. And a huge percentage of my readers wanted to save me because I am not religious. It became exhausting.

At least here I can say things like yeah, I’m sick of caring for the elderly, it’s not rewarding the way that so many people imply that it must be, if you feel it’s rewarding, please come to their address and sign up to help. I can be honest on this site, nobody knows me and nobody reads this crap. When I couldn’t write honestly in my blog anymore because of the social pressure to be positive and keep the dark parts of life hidden, it was essentially dead.

Time to start the day. I have to pick up cakes at a bakery, get prescriptions at the pharmacy, exercise, hit the grocery store for a couple of last minute items, make a sausage pasta sauce, prep some food for tomorrow’s christmas meal — I’ll also eventually make something for dinner tonight — I still haven’t finished or wrapped Jennie’s final present. Let’s go.