About -2.
My father-in-law is in the hospital dying of congestive heart failure. I realize that they're skipping him because my mother-in-law is a vicious nutcase in denial demanding that they treat this and treat that and check for every other thing when there is, basically, nothing that they can do-- but, really, would it hurt the damn doctors to come in, spend 20 minutes examining him, and just tell the woman the truth???
I can't tell her-- she doesn't want to hear it and won't take it from me. She'll think I'm saying it because I hate and fear him (which I true-- I do fear and despise him as he's a goddamn bully, but I also enjoy shooting the bull with him, relish his advice on mechanical and carpentry projects, and have no desire to have him leave this world).
She'd take it from her son...
...but he doesn't want to face it either. The closest he can get is acknowleding that it's a possibility, and not throwing a fit when I pack him a grab-and-fly bag and urge him to ignore his mother's objections and fly down there pronto. Christ-- he's got 8 days of PTO, his full 12 weeks of FMLA, and low enough expenses to take the unpaid leave.
On the other hand, it's nice to know that he minimizes and hem-haws and does not want to miss work when it's his parents dying/in trouble, and not something that was unique to me and my family. It's his personality issue, not specific to me and my second-class folks.
That'd be a -8 if there weren't 10 points or so of good stuff going on in life too.
Other than that, I'm just a loser. I can't comfort Mom. Can't guess what Hubby needs me to say and do-- though I'm pretty sure packing bags, getting the van tuned up, and being ready to roll isn't the right thing from an emotional standpoint.
My kids are brats, my house is a mess, I have half a bushel of tomatoes that I don't feel like canning up and a garden that I don't have the motivation to weed. I have a front yard that needs mowing and a porch that needs painting.
I don't seem to have the presence of mind to do anything with my kids today but snap at them. They're bored and hyper and picking fights with each other and me, and I can't get myself into a frame of mind to do anything with them.
It's noon and my dishes are still in the sink.
I feel guilty for telling a cousin I haven't seen in 5+ years that I will not wire her $100 for "treatments" that she won't tell me where they are or what they're about. I can dig shame and all-- but this is me, I'm crazy, been in and out of the nuthouse, had my fair share of addictions. I don't judge and I have no pride. She knows that, and she also knows that I know she has a long history of addiction, fraud, general bad behavior that I won't enable because I ain't in the business of being taken advantage of. But I still feel like a s**t, even though I'm 97% sure the "treatment" is BS and what she really wants is money for a fix of whatever she's on now.
I am not the person I want to be. Always neat, always organized, always patient, always creative, always buttoned-down and spiffied up. Well-tuned machines, impeccably maintained house. Perfect social skills-- not so much the cocktail-party ones, but the dealing-with-people's-problems ones. Well-educated children-- like, having taught my bright 4-year-old to read instead of just knowing all her letters and sounds, having taught my 6-year-old first-grade skills instead of spending the summer reviewing kindergarten material.
I should have a finished compost pile and thriving berries. I should have a humanure system, rainwater collection, graywater filtration. Should have converted the pool over to saltwater. Should have playhouses finished, with mini-root-cellars in all of them (buried 30-gallon trash cans, since DH says I can't have a real root cellar even though he promised me one when we chose this place). Should have built a jungle-gym, or at least a really cool sandbox.
The kids should not be watching Ratatouille for the second time in two days. They should not be whiny. They should not be fighting.
My house does not have to look like Better Homes and Gardens. But it should look like Logical Aspie Housekeeping. It looks more like White Trash On Strike.
Did I mention my kids manners, and how mentally constipated I feel today???
I have this "person I want to be" in my head. It doesn't seem that hard, or unreasonable-- it isn't perfection, not free of error. Just what I think people ought to do and be.
And I do not measure up. Ever. Some days I get closer than others, but I do not measure up.
I wonder if normal people evaluate themselves like this, or if they just do it, assume themselves to be adequate, and don't question it too deeply. I think they must use social referencing-- comparing themselves to their friends. That doesn't work for me, because I am me and they are them. It's like comparing a Fuji apple to a Granny Smith to a wild apple to a crab apple-- you are comparing apples and apples, but the criteria that fit one still don't work for another. They are living their lives with their values, I am living mine with mine, and I should be able to rise to my own standards for myself.
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"Alas, our dried voices when we whisper together are quiet and meaningless, as wind in dry grass, or rats' feet over broken glass in our dry cellar." --TS Eliot, "The Hollow Men"
06 Aug 2013, 1:41 pm
are sore. And I love it! For most intents and purposes, functionally speaking, I can say I have fully recovered.
