Failing and other worries....

Yesterday was a rough day for me. There are many things going on here and I feel like I’m sinking and failing at all of them.

1.  Mom is talking to people I can’t see and doesn’t want to live. 

2.   Mom needs me to be in the room with her more and more.

3.   I worry about Dad.

4.   My craft room is a mess, our bedroom looks like a hurricane tore through it and my office needs to be finished. 

5.   W is a neater, more organized person, than I am and I worry he’s going to get pissed at me and walk away one of these days. 

6.   Our garage is full of boxes that need to be gone through. 

7.   Our storage area in the basement needs shelves built and boxes gone through. 

8.   Our 14 yr. old sasses me and doesn't seem to care about anything, even his own belongings. 

9.    I got used by a “friend” and I am still hurt over it. 

10.   My body is painful and I’m tired.

More often I am spending the entire day with mom in their room. She is now on oxygen at night but is asking for it during the day. So instead of being able to wheel her out to the living room or the kitchen, we are in their bedroom listening to the same audiobooks over and over. I work on my laptop in the recliner but that leaves a long list of things undone. Yesterday I rearranged our pantry which was a necessary evil. It took me a few hours longer than it should have because I had to check on mom a lot so I took 15 minute breaks every hour. Whether or not I’m in the room, mom talks to people I can’t see. She talks to people that are dead and if I answer her or respond to her in any way she gets very upset with me for interrupting. She tells me she hates me because I make her do things. She tells me she wants dad to send me away. She tells me I’m mean to her. I should be used to it by now, but I'm not and it’s hard to hear over and over. Last night she was asking to die. She doesn't want to be a burden.  She wants to know when she will die. I can't get her to understand that Dad and I don't have that info. I told her that no one comes in this world with their expiration date stamped on their ass. I know there are times when she does know what’s happening to her. I can understand her fear and don’t blame her for getting upset. I wish we were already past this stage.

I worry about Dad and how he is dealing with what’s going on with Mom. We don’t get to talk as much as we used to as one of us is always with mom. And talking about her in front of her is not a good idea- she can get pretty damn vicious. I don’t know how he’s doing with the changes in mom. I know I cry and have W to hold me. But what about Dad? I pray he’s talking to one of his friends because carrying this big of a weight alone sucks.

I am used to being in control of my own world. I am used to doing everything on my own. W is doing his best to pick up the slack but he does say snide remarks about doing them or while doing them. I feel like I’m failing him because I see the mess and haven’t been able to catch up on it. When I have time I want to spend it with him or with the boy so that we are doing family things. I worry that he’s going to get fed up and walk away because this is more work than he thought it would be and too much is falling to him. I am used to having a long list of things to accomplish and taking my time. If it gets done today great, if not, tomorrow it’ll still be there. W doesn’t operate that way. He sees it and wants to take care of it right away. The problem is, he wants to know where to put stuff which means I either have to be down there with him when he’s working on it or it’s just going to have to wait- I can’t keep walking away from Mom to tell him where to put things. If he has things that he doesn’t know what to do with, it goes in a storage bin. I will need to get through that bin at some point. And when he does do things, I look around and don’t see my touch on things anymore. Our home is being put together but I feel like it’s not mine. I know it’s illogical because most of the stuff around is stuff I owned before he moved here or its things we’ve picked out together. It’s a control thing for me. As dad got home from work last night, I walked out the front door in tears. I went for a walk (barefoot) around the block by myself while W cooked. After dinner W and I sat on the front porch swing and talked about what I’m feeling. He said he’ll watch the snide comments and that he’s only trying to help me out. I understand that, but what I don’t think he understands is that I feel like a failure for not being able to take care of it myself. It is hard to know that you can’t do it all and have to have someone else take over the tasks that you enjoy. (I have no issue with him taking over the laundry though because I hate that task.J)

I’ve been talking about having a rummage sale for over a year. Still hasn’t happened as I haven’t been able to get through all the boxes. It’s a daunting task to know our two car garage is full of boxes and our basement storage area is too. And before anyone says it, yes one box at a time. I am failing at keeping at it and up with all the crap we have. I’ve set deadlines and haven’t even remotely hit them. Check off one more failure.

Our boy has been with us since June 22^nd. No he’s not my biological son, but he is W’s son and I willingly took him on as my own the day I fell in love with W. One day we seem to take a step in the right direction and the next he’s back to sassing me. When I call him on sassing, his response is “it was a joke.” And no matter how many times I tell him it didn’t sound like a joke he makes me out to be the “mean” one as I can’t take his jokes. Everything I tell him, or W tells him, is met with an argument. He has to have a comeback every single time. We can’t get him to understand that we know he doesn’t want to empty the dishwasher or help clean up after dinner, we don’t either, but it’s his job. He doesn’t have many chores with us (keep his room picked up, take his dirty laundry downstairs every Sunday, change his sheets on Sunday, pick up after himself, eating is done only at the kitchen table, and help clean up the kitchen after dinner every night) and yet he acts like we’re expecting him to be Cinderella. He has his chore list posted in his room and yet he can’t seem to get it done every day. Asking him to pick up his belongings (phone, Xbox games, toys, etc.) is met with “I know!” and yet doesn’t get done. His games will be all scratched up and we won't replace them. He's bought a few of them and still doesn't value them. We hear a lot of “ugh”, “I KNOW!” and “uh-huh” from him. Even my dad, who is the most patient man I know, has told him to cut the crap and stop arguing with me every time I tell him to do something. When we ask the boy what he wants to do in the future he gets all pissy at us and tells us we’re trying to get him to grow up too fast. We can’t get him to see that having an idea of what you want to do isn’t a bad thing. He can’t see that we’re trying to have discussions with him, to help him develop his interpersonal skills. I’ve taken to not responding to him when he snips at me. I don’t know how else to get him to see that I’m not going to put up with his disrespect. We took his electronics away the other day, I mean everything, all day. It was a pretty great day- not once did he snip at me or his dad. He found things to do outside- whittling, riding his bike, taking the dog for a walk, and skateboarding. When he came in, he actually picked up a book and read for an hour. School starts here on the 22^nd and he’s already got an attitude about it and it’s not a positive one. I’m prepping myself for the wars over homework and such. I am working on a routine for him- one that will be on a board that he can look at every day. I don’t know how else to make it was easy as possible for us all. We had a family game night two nights ago and we had a great time. But when he sees me just “sitting here, playing on my laptop” in mom’s room he doesn’t get that I’d rather be doing something else, but this is my job and I have to be here for her. I’d love to be able to spend the day outside with him. I can’t. No matter what I say to him about anything, if I contradict him or tell him to stop doing something, I am “mean” and “don’t accept him for who he is.”, all because I will not let him lie to me nor will I allow him to devalue himself or be disrespectful to his father, my father or me. I haven’t been able to reach him yet. I am failing him.

I met a woman last fall through FB. We were in a group together. While I haven’t met most of the women in this group in person, I consider them my friends and sisters. We support each other through hell and high water or cheer for the each other when the good stuff happens. This particular woman messaged me in May asking for help due to a financial hardship. She played on my emotions and used the “my kids don’t have food” line. I was able to help her out thanks to a refund I’d received and she promised she’d pay me back. I had no reason to think otherwise. She happened to run an online store and I purchased a Father’s Day gift for W from her. In the beginning of June she messaged me and told me it had been shipped along with repayment for the loan. Father’s Day came and went and I messaged her because the box never showed up. I was concerned that if the check she’d said was in the box was taken that she could be hurt financially. I also had plans for that gift for W. At the beginning of July it came to my attention that she’d done similar things with other people in the group and she wasn't responding to any of us. Not only did it hurt but it pissed me off. I thought she was my friend and that I was helping her out. I never thought she was scamming me. I called her out for it in the group and was instantly blocked by her. Her store was suddenly gone from the website. I had no way to get in contact with her, still don’t. If she couldn't pay me back, fine, just tell me- be honest. That’s what real friends do. But to not send me something I purchased as a gift for someone else and then not respond to me when I asked where it was is beyond disrespectful. I was able to obtain a refund for the gift from the site she had her store on even though she wouldn't respond to them either. I know I won’t get the loan back. I could have put that money towards Christmas. But I will do without it and I will get over it. However, to be honest, I won’t be helping anyone else out for a long time. I don’t hold anyone else accountable for her actions- they were hers and hers alone. I hate that she hurt mutual friends. I would much rather it just is me that got burned, not others. I will always want to prevent others from getting burned. 

As I said earlier, yesterday I redid our pantry. I took everything out, wiped down the shelves, vacuumed and mopped the floors. Then I put everything back in. I was up and down from the floor to the ladder to the table to the counters. I bent, I twisted, I crouched and I lifted. I scrubbed, wiped, and organized. I spent the day before running errands with the boy- the bank, the beautician, the grocery store and Wal-Mart. Today my legs are on fire, my head is pounding and my body is telling me I overdid it. Two days of that much activity is too much for me. I know this, but I don’t like not being able to do what I want. I want to be able to get things done and have boundless energy. I want to not have to swallow pain relievers just to get through the day. I know that for me I'll never get back to what I want. I have a new normal. I have to work within my own body’s constraints. I know there are people out there who will never understand the pain I am in daily because they see the smile on my face. I smile through the pain because trying to explain how I feel is harder than simply smiling. I cry at night when it gets too far out of control. I pray for relief and the strength to get through another day. As soon as dinner is done tonight, I will go lie in bed and watch my shows. I will get up tomorrow and go tackle some of the boxes in the garage. Sunday I will be in pain. This is my world.

Right now mom is asking when dad will be home. This is the 8th time (she's asked two more times while I've been proofreading) since lunch that she’s asked. And tonight when we sit down for dinner she will ask him repeatedly if he has to go back to work after lunch. Repeat, rinse and repeat. I’m counting down the minutes till I can go downstairs and try to forget how badly I feel I’m failing at being a mom, a housekeeper, a caregiver, a daughter and a partner to W.