I guess this is growing up.
My current family situation is like a bad day-time soap opera, and I feel like the middle-aged house-wife that sits on her fat ass, incapable of having an impact on the events around her.
It's like this.
I'm an only child, and I grew up spending virtually every weekend with my mother's relatives. That's a pretty small circle. My grandmother, one aunt, two uncles, one cousin. They were the bedrock that I began to build my life on. The frigging cement that held the fractured pieces of my life together.
Now, it feels like the only thing I had to hold onto in this crazy existence is prying my fingers loose from their hand hold and tossing me screaming and writing into a bottomless pit of uncertainty.
First, my grandmother. This isn't anything new, but she has dementia, and it seems to intensify all the time. Some days she knows me. She can remember my name, who my parents are, even where I go to school. But the bad days... that's when she spends hours wandering the house looking for her deceased husband and trying to enlist us in her battle against the small race of elves that have taken up residence in her closet. Watching one of the most gentle, loving people in your life lose her grasp on reality is a tough thing to do.
Next, my uncle. He's spinal chord injured, has been for decades. He's paralyzed from the waist down, which can cause some pretty complex medical problems. Couple that with adult-onset diabetes, poor medical care at Spaulding rehab, and a host of other contributing factors, and you get his current situation. He's been in one hospital or another for the past 6 months. I can't even begin to imagine something so horrible. He's confined to this fucking bed, unable to move anything below his navel, staring at the same four walls as life passes him by. He's a good man, and doesn't deserve this.
Needless to say, that's had an effect on my aunt, who has spent days at a time at his bedside during all this shit. She's the one who has to scream at the moronic doctors and nurses whose careless mistakes have kept him laid up. She's had to deal with the bullshit that her job entails while she watches her husband's health deteriorate, while at the same time burying a pet that she has loved for the past 14 years. She has to deal with my grandmother, and with my other uncle's (who lives with my grandmother) concern, that varies from overbearing to obsessive.
For fun, toss in the fact that my parents, who haven't gotten along particularly well for as long as I've known them, have hit an all time low. My dad's business woes coupled with my mother's family issues have really helped push things further down the drain.
And finally, my cousin, Carrie. One of the greatest people who I've had the pleasure of knowing. She's the kind of individual who I never used to believe existed. The kind who lights up a room, and can make any situation better because of her constant cheer and optimism. The kind that spends her life helping inner city kids find a better life. She was just diagnosed with MS.
Well fuck that shit.
If there were something I could do, I might be ok.
If there a tangible enemy that I could confront head on, deal with, and put behind me, I might be ok.
But it isn't. My nemesis, my loathed foe, is none other than time. And time is employing the ultimate weapon in its war on my sanity: growing up.
Every time I say goodbye to someone, or leave a house, or exit a car, I wonder if it'll be for the last time. It'd be nice to have a heads up if that's the case, just so I can make that last good-bye more worthwhile.
What it comes down to is, I'm not strong enough to let go. Not yet.
I'm not sure why I'm writing this. I don't know if it's supposed to excuse any of my anti-social behavior, or justify my mood swings, or what. I do know that the following things are keeping me sane:
Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
Comics.
That 70's Show.
Elton John.
Return of the King.
I need escapist media more than ever before, which is why I've embarked on my current mission. The plan, at this moment, is to read all of the following in a row:
The Dark Tower
The Lord of the Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia
A Song of Ice and Fire
Theoretically, by the time I finish, some resolutions will have been reached, or I will be completely insane. At this moment, either is acceptable.
Peace and good karma.
It's like this.
I'm an only child, and I grew up spending virtually every weekend with my mother's relatives. That's a pretty small circle. My grandmother, one aunt, two uncles, one cousin. They were the bedrock that I began to build my life on. The frigging cement that held the fractured pieces of my life together.
Now, it feels like the only thing I had to hold onto in this crazy existence is prying my fingers loose from their hand hold and tossing me screaming and writing into a bottomless pit of uncertainty.
First, my grandmother. This isn't anything new, but she has dementia, and it seems to intensify all the time. Some days she knows me. She can remember my name, who my parents are, even where I go to school. But the bad days... that's when she spends hours wandering the house looking for her deceased husband and trying to enlist us in her battle against the small race of elves that have taken up residence in her closet. Watching one of the most gentle, loving people in your life lose her grasp on reality is a tough thing to do.
Next, my uncle. He's spinal chord injured, has been for decades. He's paralyzed from the waist down, which can cause some pretty complex medical problems. Couple that with adult-onset diabetes, poor medical care at Spaulding rehab, and a host of other contributing factors, and you get his current situation. He's been in one hospital or another for the past 6 months. I can't even begin to imagine something so horrible. He's confined to this fucking bed, unable to move anything below his navel, staring at the same four walls as life passes him by. He's a good man, and doesn't deserve this.
Needless to say, that's had an effect on my aunt, who has spent days at a time at his bedside during all this shit. She's the one who has to scream at the moronic doctors and nurses whose careless mistakes have kept him laid up. She's had to deal with the bullshit that her job entails while she watches her husband's health deteriorate, while at the same time burying a pet that she has loved for the past 14 years. She has to deal with my grandmother, and with my other uncle's (who lives with my grandmother) concern, that varies from overbearing to obsessive.
For fun, toss in the fact that my parents, who haven't gotten along particularly well for as long as I've known them, have hit an all time low. My dad's business woes coupled with my mother's family issues have really helped push things further down the drain.
And finally, my cousin, Carrie. One of the greatest people who I've had the pleasure of knowing. She's the kind of individual who I never used to believe existed. The kind who lights up a room, and can make any situation better because of her constant cheer and optimism. The kind that spends her life helping inner city kids find a better life. She was just diagnosed with MS.
Well fuck that shit.
If there were something I could do, I might be ok.
If there a tangible enemy that I could confront head on, deal with, and put behind me, I might be ok.
But it isn't. My nemesis, my loathed foe, is none other than time. And time is employing the ultimate weapon in its war on my sanity: growing up.
Every time I say goodbye to someone, or leave a house, or exit a car, I wonder if it'll be for the last time. It'd be nice to have a heads up if that's the case, just so I can make that last good-bye more worthwhile.
What it comes down to is, I'm not strong enough to let go. Not yet.
I'm not sure why I'm writing this. I don't know if it's supposed to excuse any of my anti-social behavior, or justify my mood swings, or what. I do know that the following things are keeping me sane:
Stephen King's Dark Tower series.
Comics.
That 70's Show.
Elton John.
Return of the King.
I need escapist media more than ever before, which is why I've embarked on my current mission. The plan, at this moment, is to read all of the following in a row:
The Dark Tower
The Lord of the Rings
The Chronicles of Narnia
A Song of Ice and Fire
Theoretically, by the time I finish, some resolutions will have been reached, or I will be completely insane. At this moment, either is acceptable.
Peace and good karma.