I Can't Think Of A Good Title For This

I Can't Think Of A Good Title For This

“Neurosis is the inability to tolerate ambiguity.” - Sigmund Freud

Very nice day with Katie. We got in later than I'd hoped, had a late dinner, and took her home an hour behind schedule. But it was because we were enjoying ourselves at the play area and at Jungle Jim's - the greatest goddamn grocery store I know of.

I wanted to be seeing Stanhope now, but the fact is, I don't trust myself to stay awake behind the wheel. I'm fucked up right now from probably the most-drinking/least-sleep ing week I've had in a long time. Shit, I took three nights off drinking this week (which hasn't happened in so long I can't remember) and STILL had more than I usually do.

Mom called as I was taking Katie home.

My dad and two of my uncles are with my grandma at the hospital. My uncle N found her on her floor earlier today. She's had another stroke. She was aware of what was going on as she was put in the ambulance, but wasn't able to talk.

Grandma turned 98 last month, on Groundhog's Day - so we got to ask her if she saw her shadow. I saw her the day after that, at an uncle's house.

I have a long post to write about my father's family and how I'm finding myself connecting more with them and less with my mother's these days. I was always much closer to Mom's side. Now I'm starting to see the extent of how bad that was for me growing up - I really do believe now that my dad was an anomaly: the rest of his family are a lot more fun than he ever was.

I'm too tired to write more about it now.

My grandfather (my mom's stepdad) had a stroke just after Christmas. His condition is deteriorating. I'd planned on visiting him Saturday, but he's been moved to Ft. Wayne, and will likely not be coming back. I'm sure my grandma is thinking of the connection with him dying in Ft. Wayne - her dad died in a hospital up there while she was pregnant with my mom.

All arrangements are made for both of them, have been for a while.

In typical fashion, Mom told me she was "hoping for a miracle." Which makes my blood boil and shit come out my ears to hear her say. I'm so tired of her delusional religious horseshit. I'm tired of how SELFISH she is to say this shit. It isn't about them - why the fuck would THEY want to live any longer? Trust me, I've seen them. They DON'T. Their lives are over. If you simply have to engage in your nonsense and "pray" anything, pray for it to be as painless as possible, then shut your fucking mouth. Mom has been "praying for a miracle" for my handicapped sister for THIRTY FUCKING YEARS now. There is no learning curve with people like my mother. Frankly, if I did believe this God shit, I still would be irritated (and I always have been when she talks like this) because let's be honest - even God is going to look at a morbidly miserable woman like her and say "You know what? I've got somebody on another line, can I put your ass on hold?"

I'm thinking more about my sister right now, who doesn't deal well with change of any kind, death in particular. My sister lives with the results of radiation therapy inflicted on her when she was two years old (they killed the leukemia, and a lot of other things with it) and the vast array of medication she's been on for years now. She's 31, but hasn't progressed much in decades now. The meds have caused her to gain a ridiculous amount of weight and slow her down to a crawl (the fact that my parents don't seem to know a fucking thing about feeding her well or encouraging exercise of any kind hasn't helped)and her speech has been slurred to the point where I can't have a real conversation with her anymore. If she answers the phone, you might as well be talking Sanskrit to a block of wood.

Around the time I moved in with Sheryl in 2000, we were hit with all sorts of family shit. My grandma had a stroke and nearly died. My aunt did die. My cousin killed himself. All within a year or so. My sister became incredibly difficult to deal with, and I was convinced my mom would snap. I'll say one thing for her insane religion - it might have been the only thing that kept her going through all this.

J has been brought up by a mother who was forced to give extra attention to her becuase of her illness, and has been brought up with the bizarre mix of "faith" and dismal morbidity that pretty much defines our mother. Mom is a great believer in faith and hope - when she's not convinced that the entire fabric of the universe is about to unfold due to whatever tragedy is happening at the moment. (Including the non-tragedies that she latches onto.) I get my bipolar nature honestly - my mom is more of a fucking twisted mess than even *I* am.

So, knowing how out of control J was when she lost her favorite cousin and her favorite aunt, nearly lost her grandma, and saw me move away and finally escape a fucking house she's doomed to be in for the rest of her life, I'm not optomistic about how she'll cope when these two go, quite probably at around the same time. With my mom's weird mix of "they're in heaven with Jesus" and godawful miserable displays of inability to accept anything that crosses her path, being shoved into J's face all day, I'm wondering when SHE will go. Her own physical condition is terrible, not helped by what she goes through in her head, so if my sister makes it to 40, I'll be shocked.

I grew up thinking she was my best friend, but I've come to see my mother as the true joy-killer in our family (and when you look at where and who she came from, it's no wonder), a view that was confirmed in spades a few months ago when I found out that my dad - the one I THOUGHT was such a miserable pain in the ass - used to enjoy going out and DANCING, of all things. Somehting I can't FATHOM my father doing. And who took that from him? SHE did. She didn't enjoy that. She doesn't really enjoy ANYTHING except having something to be miserable about and blame The Devil for. Well, she also seems to enjoy having a new disease for each day of the week. I don't know HOW many fucking things she seems to be able to come down sick with every other time I talk to her.

The fact that I see so many parallels to this neurotic freakshow in myself scares the shit out of me.

I realize what I'm really doing when I'm doing the things that I get the most enjoyment from - I'm pushing myself away from how I grew up. To even sit and type this shit - to derive pleasure from opening up and letting the interior shit come out, because it sure beats the fuck out of letting it sit inside and eat your soul - is so against everything I was brought up to be...

Wait a minute. Didn't I write something half an hour ago about how I was too tired to write a lot of shit?

I should make my mom start writing a blog. If she ever got into it and really let herself go, I guarantee that every one of you regular readers would desert me in a heartbeat - HER shit would almost HAVE to be fifty times more entertaining than mine. I'm just the SON of a neurotic wackbasket.

I need to shower and clear my head so I can work tomorrow. You fuckers have a good night.

Love,
Dougie