clorindascreams

[clorindascreams]

Been awhile since I even looked at this.  Sadly, looking at the last entry, nothing’s really changed.  I could have written that post yesterday.

If anything at all has changed, it’s my growing sense of anger.  I’m trapped in a job I hate, in a life situation I hate, and I have no way to change it.  Change, when it happens, is simply thrust upon me, it’s not something I manage to initiate myself.

And the changes are not good.  Of course they aren’t!  The moment I feel I have any stability or security, something has to come and give my life a good whack, shaking things down and reminding me that no, I have nothing that can’t be taken away from me by someone’s mere whim, or some uncaring force.  And it WILL be taken away from me.  I dance on my strings delaying the loss as best I can, but I’m probably kidding myself in the end.

And this makes me angry.  It makes me FURIOUS.  People around me have resources I couldn’t even dream of, much less have to help me, and then whine about how hard they have it, and guess who’s expected to not only sympathize but pitch in and help them?

And when I whine, it’s always, “well just use this thing or service, it’s there to help you!”  And those things never actually exist.  They’re pulled from the fantasies of people who can’t process things being allowed to go to shit.  Or they exist, but not in the form they assumed they must.  Or I am not eligible because help is only for when you reach absolute rock bottom and have lost everything you were hoping to save.

Shit, people  can’t even process that I can’t drive, or that I don’t have some extended family obliged to help out.  But there’s sure the sense of me having to watch how much I share, because if I do express how bad things are for me, it’s not help I’m offered.  It’s shock and condemnation.

And this is why people are on the street, isn’t it?  The offer of help is supposed to be enough to make the bad situation go away.  You’re not supposed to need actual help, or at least not help past the bare minimum.  Just pull yourself up and fix your problems, you’re strong enough!  And if you aren’t, well that means you fucking deserve what you get, you lazy little shit.  We might expect you to drop everything and devote your time to solving our little problems, but don’t you DARE ask us to do the same!

Or worse, you get someone who wants to help you...but they are completely unable to understand the actual problem.

“Help, please help me out of this hole!”  “Sure!  Let me get this shovel!”  And then they proceed to either dump dirt directly on your head, or they work on filling in a hole next to yours, or just start digging a new one.  “No, stop, I need help out of this hole, you’re making things worse!|”  “Well, what do you want me to do?  I’m doing my best, you need to meet me halfway!”

And then they’re hurt and wander off.  Even if you tell them to get a rope or a ladder, they won’t listen.  They just insist that you’re asking them to fill a hole, they can’t process that you need help to get out of the hole.

So you learn to not ask.  And you learn to despise blithe offers of help from people, because you can’t trust them.

And you never stop wondering why you have to stay in the hole, while there’s so many people wandering around up top who could get you out with little to no effort, if they’d just bother.

It’s a long way to say I still hate my life.  But what else am I going to do while trapped in the hole?

[clorindascreams]

Please, please help me.

Everything keeps being added to my shoulders.  Every problem requires me fixing it.  Nobody else will do it.  Most of them won’t even help.  Nobody else can take care of whatever it is, so it has to be me.

I can’t even hold my own life together.  I’m flailing my way through existence, constantly stressed or scared or humiliated or all of it at once, and my reward for figuring anything out is, “here, you’re good at it, you take care of it for me!”

And the problems keep happening.  It never stops.  I fix one thing, five more pop up.  What the hell am I supposed to do?  Why is it always me?  Why is my probably autistic ass the only adult here?

I spent 46 years having to figure things out myself while being derided or even yelled at, because nobody wanted to teach me anything, and in fact expected me to know things simply because I reached an age level.  And now it’s my responsibility to know or do things, regardless of my abilities or resources, because now nobody else can do the things.

I’ve actually contemplated suicide.  It’s still not likely, considering my terror of death and any potential afterlife, but it keeps coming up, and I’m terrified it might actually become a possibility with the way things keep going.

I need another adult.  Someone who knows how to cope, and who can help ground me.  Of course, that could turn into another shitty situation, with me being the worthless person who can’t do anything, and expecting that other person to fend for me as well as themselves.  I don’t want THAT.  

I just...need a friend.  Someone who will bring the world into my home.  Someone who will keep me tethered to outside reality, and help me stumble my way forward.

I don’t want to be carried.  I just want someone tugging at my hand and helping me to not fall off the cliff.

Why is that so impossible for me?  What’s so broken in myself that I can’t make and keep friends?

[clorindascreams]

I don’t know why I’m surprised he lied to me.  He lies all the fucking time.

Couldn’t be arsed to do his taxes until now.  Because of course not.  It’s not nearly as important as watching 12 hours of TV every fucking day.

Nor should I be surprised that he was hellbent on cutting up and ruining yet another pair of his shoes because his feet swelled up again, and he tossed the last pair he cut up to handle his swollen feet.

Nor should I be surprised about his fucking feet ballooning again.  He couldn’t stay off the fucking sugar, could he?  Oh, the tea isn’t sweet enough, let’s dump more sugar than is found in soda into it!  And then he wonders why he feels like dog shit.  Won’t admit it when you point it out, either.  No no, it must be something else.  Something that’s not his fault and couldn’t be avoided.  So he won’t have to make a change.

I’m so goddamn tired of dealing with this level of idiocy.  Other people have families that are supportive and have brains that they use.  Why did I get stuck with the goddamn 400 pound toddler and nobody else?

Proof positive that this reality is the one where bad dominates.  It kills my mother, who was a hard worker, responsible, watched her diet, and capable of connecting with people, and lets my selfish asshole of a father just keep poking along alive in spite of a level of body abuse that should have killed him decades ago.

[clorindascreams]

Again and again and again.

He got better, he got worse, he went back into the hospital.  Then he came home, and fell, and went right back in again.  Then he came home again, and got faint, and we went back again, only for him to be kicked to the curb because “it wasn’t that serious.”

So I have to deal with him.  And that would be fine, except after a strong start, it’s clear that he’s not going to really work at getting better.  He’s going to sit around asking to be waited on and just wait for some miracle where he becomes mobile again without having to go through the pain and effort.

He did quit the fucking soda, at least.  By force, but he quit it.  Lost at least 15 pounds in short order too.  Fancy that, stop sucking down 12 cans of sugar water a day, and you lose weight?  Who’d have thought?

I’ve had to be with him on several doctor visits now, and it’s clear that yes, he’s been fucking lying for years.  The doctors try to warn him about health shit, and he brushes them off at supersonic speed.  And immediately forgets anything they say if it’s not what he wants to hear.

Having to provide his memory and motivation is tiring as fuck.  And I want to scream.  For my entire life, he provided the absolute bare minimum in raising and caring.  The harder the emotional situation was, the more likely I would be expected to deal with it without any help or support at all.

And now, I’m supposed to provide all the heavy lifting for him.  I’m supposed to keep him on track, make sure he gets to his appointments, make sure he gets fed.  Listen to him whine and bitch and moan, because magic isn’t happening while he’s sitting in front of the TV all day.

I have to run the errands by bus.  I have to deal with the panic attacks.  I have to deal with the embarrassment of asking for rides for him, because he can’t even do that on his own.  I get all the stress, and he sits on his immense ass all day not thinking about things, not even keeping track of what fucking day it is. 

He might as well be dead already.  He provides nothing.  He just takes.  And he doesn’t even enjoy doing that.  He’s a vampire bitching about how it sucks to be him while he drains you dry.

When do I get my own life?  Tell me that.  When?

[clorindascreams]

I’m not having a good time.

I’m stuck with a constant anxiety attack because of...everything.

On Feb 3rd, Dad got sick while I was seeing a play.  I got home, and he was grumpy and didn’t always respond to questions.  He complained of chills, and proved to have a fever of 102F.  But he insisted he was fine, and seemed coherent.  I brought him excederin, and his fever dropped to 100F.  So I figured he’d have a bad couple of days and then get over it, just like I had the previous week.

He was not better the following morning.  Still low fever, and he started responding less and less often to me.  I fixed us breakfast, and he only ate half of it and went back to his recliner/bed.  He would only get up to use the restroom.  And I started getting concerned, because he would sit up, and then rock back and forth while gripping the armrests, “trying to get up.”  I kept having to hand him his canes to remind him how he normally stands up.

He still insisted he was fine.  Still insisted that I didn’t need to call an ambulance.  But it was getting more and more concerning.  I had work the next day, and was afraid of leaving him alone like that.  So sometime after 6pm, I finally started a full round of questions, laying out my serious concerns.  A few of them he got right away.  More often, he just remained silent, looking at me.  I had to prompt him repeatedly to answer.

And the answers were now wrong.  Today’s date got a date 6 months away. He didn’t know what day of the week it actually was.  He couldn’t remember my sister’s name, or where she lived.

And that’s when I informed him that he was in serious trouble, and I was calling an ambulance.

The paramedics agreed that there was something wrong, and that he needed the hospital.  Some amount of chaos later, we were off.  Within a few hours, the nearby hospital had him on antibiotics, had brought his temperature down and his mind a little more in focus, but he was experiencing severe constant tachycardia.  Transport to our health plan’s hospital was also delayed until 5am, and I was sent home.

He was in for two weeks.  Staph infection in the right leg.  They shifted his room 4 times, and ran scans on his head, heart, and legs.  He was incontinent, couldn’t walk, and I couldn’t trust what he said.  The first doctor he had never bothered to call back and talk to me or my sister.  The second doctor was much better, and made a point of calling or coming in to talk to me.

Last Sunday, he was discharged.  He’s mobile again.  He can care for himself, and the mental problems are gone.  He’s still sick, though.  And yesterday I had a kind of vindication.  After two weeks of having my fears downplayed by him and his nurses, his regular doctor for his legs informed him that he had sepsis, and that if I hadn’t called the ambulance, he would be dead now.

So he’s still on antibiotics.  Also painkillers, and whatever else.  He drove to another appointment today, the first time he’s drived himself since the hospital.  My heart was in my mouth while he was gone.  And tomorrow, I have to ride with him, because our microwave died, and I had to order a new one for pickup.  And he won’t wait for delivery.  So that terror is hanging over my head.

Followed up by the neighbor approaching me, asking questions about “my brother”.  Turned out she meant the workman/landlady’s boyfriend.  Wanting to talk to him about the smell of wacky tobaccy in her backyard, talking about filing a complaint.  So I had to warn him about that, and now I’m living with the stress of this latest feud brewing between him and the neighbors.  (The weed has permits.  I don’t like it, but as far as I know, it’s actually legal.  The neighbors are assholes, and I’ve long wondered about what they’re dealing on the side, as none of them seem to go out for work, and the illegal mechanics business they run from their yard doesn’t really seem to have enough custom to be bringing in the money they have to have to pay for their house, their bills, and the stuff they buy.)

I just want to stay the hell out of all of that.  I want to be able to sit here and not worry about every sound I hear, worry about the outdoor cats’ safety, worry about our house getting invaded or burned down, worry about the cops saying the backyard weed is illegal and arresting everyone here for dealing even though most of us have nothing to do with it.  Worry about Dad crashing the car and killing me, or a pedestrian, or another driver, or himself.  Worry about landslides while riding the bus over the mountains, considering the current mess on the one route.  Worry about Dad eventually dying of a sepsis infection, as that seems inevitable now, and worry about being homeless because of my ruined finances in the aftermath.  Worry about just not being able to cope with anything anymore, and having nobody I can fully rely on to save me.

I get nothing done like this.  But I can’t stop the worry.  All I can do is shuffle from minor task to minor task while it eats me alive inside and pray things don’t escalate into horror.

Is it too much to ask for a safe home life, neighbors that don’t make me afraid, and things in my life not constantly falling apart?  What do I have to do to get that?  What CAN I do to get that?  Because the only answers I’ve ever been able to get are things that just aren’t possible for me to do, involving money I will never have, and abilities I just can’t seem to develop.

[clorindascreams]

I came down with a fever on Sunday morning, so I’ve been stuck at home, zombie-shuffling around for the past four days.  And of course, thinking way too much about everything, which can tip me right over into a nasty depression spiral.  I’ve largely avoided this, but this one thing just jumped out at me, and made me slightly aghast.

See, our thermometer was broken on Sunday morning.  Needed a new fiddly little battery that I don’t have and was in no shape to mess with anyway.  But the fever was obvious to me, because I was cold as fuck, and shivering with a fleece jacket on.  In 80 degree weather.

My father, upon hearing of the broken thermometer, called me over and felt my forehead. “You don’t feel warm,” was his diagnosis.  He didn’t think I had a fever, based entirely on that.

Which was...the way to diagnose illness during most of my childhood.  We were poor, and rarely had a working thermometer.  I would feel awful without obvious congestion, my parents would feel my forehead, and pronounce me, “you just don’t want to go to school.”  All the time.  I assumed most of my illnesses growing up were “all in my head.”  Or, as the one doctor diagnosed, the result of being a fatass.  (”If you’d just lose weight, you’d stop being sick all the time.”)

Please note that every single member of my family had a permanent sinus infection during my childhood.  Runny noses were our lives; there wasn’t a single day any of us could breathe clearly.   But, y’know, it wasn’t an illness, you just aren’t trying to be healthy.

I staggered out on Monday and bought a new thermometer.  Surprise surprise, I was right.  A fever in the 102F range.  Which quickly dropped with treatment, to be replaced by the normal congestion.  And the normal “feeling like microwaved shit.”

And it’s funny how this was still a thing I had to prove.  But I really shouldn’t be surprised.  In the tenth grade, I felt like shit for weeks.  My mom responded, well, if you’re sick so often, you should see the doctor.   Which was supposed to scare me into shaking it off and going to school.

Instead, I agreed to go to the doctor.  Who noted that I actually had an “elevated temperature.”  “How long have you been feeling this way?”

I gave him the honest answer.  “About a month.”  My mother was shocked.  I would later be scolded into being more open and telling her important things like this.  I’m not sure what more I was supposed to do to inform her of the situation.  A brass band to reinforce all the times I told her I felt sick?  I mean, we lived in the same house, she’d been pushing me out the door to go to school for that month, and wasn’t taking me seriously.

And as a result, I hadn’t taken myself seriously either.  When I went to the doctor, I assumed I’d get the once-over, the usual soul-crushing “there’s nothing wrong with you except for your bad habits,” and have to deal with my mother’s passive-aggressive guilt trip about wasting money on an unnecessary expensive doctor’s visit.

Instead, the doctor got concerned.  A blood test and chest x-ray followed.  Along with a diagnosis of pneumonia.  I was out of school and choking down horse-pill sized antibiotics for two weeks.

Of course, as I recall, within a year we stopped using that doctor, and my parents gave out the opinion that he had given a fake or inflated diagnosis to make some money off of us.  The guilt trip came back.  I had cost them money with my mental difficulties, allowing a shady doctor to take advantage of us.  Not said outright to me, of course.  But it came out in comments during later colds, a bronchitis attack, and other school sickouts.  

And I believed them.  Never mind the green gunk I coughed up when the antibiotics started to work.  I believed I had let my “extreme shyness” take over and that I had faked being sick.  Do you have any idea what it’s like to be convinced you were and are lying every time you feel sick?

And it’s only recently I have enough confidence to be able to say, “this isn’t right, I’m obviously ill, and need to take corrective action.”  And even still, I’ve often dragged myself to work convinced that once I get going, the illness will waft away like the illusion I think it is.

And dad has learned nothing at all.  Christ.  The shit he and mom did to me for the sake of money and not admitting I might not be fully normal so their parenting couldn’t be called into question...small wonder I’m so fucking bitter.

[clorindascreams]

Picked up one of Dad’s sliding piles.  I had an empty box, so I dumped the paperwork into it and restacked things so they’re mostly out of the way.  (Okay, just not as in the way as they were before.)

It drives me crazy.  It started out as a small pile of things to sort and (hopefully) throw away.  That turned into the foundation of a pile of crap that just keeps growing and growing.  The man generates a fuckton of crap I have to haul to the curb every week, and yet, the house gets MORE cluttered, not less.  “His” table (actually OUR dining table that nobody else can use now) is completely covered with a foot of mail and other crap.  The pile is two feet high on one end!  And it’s just junk, plain and simple.  DVDs recorded off the TV, never mind that he doesn’t rewatch them.  Hell, he can’t even FIND them at will!  They’re all in spindles, he’d have to take the thing apart and sort through 50 discs to find one!  Bank statements and such papers from YEARS ago, no longer needed.  Catalogs old and new.  Magazines he never reads, but won’t part with.  Things bought off eBay, looked at once or twice, then stuffed in the pile and forgotten about.

I HATE living that way!  I spend so much time clearing things out so I DON’T have to live that way, and he just wallows in his filthy piles, constantly looking for buy new things because he can’t find the old.  Refusing to let go of things like undersized t-shirts because he can’t admit that he’ll never lose the weight to wear them again.  Refusing to give up a bedroom he can’t climb the stairs to use.  Constantly encroaching on MY space, but won’t cede an inch of HIS.

I would give so much to be able to throw his shit out.  Clear all the garbage, sell the books and DVDs he never uses, sell the unused dive equipment, throw out the catalogs and magazines and moldy VHS tapes.  Dump the coolers.

To be able to properly clean and use the space?  To be able to do my things without tripping over him, or cramming my projects into a tiny space because he monopolizes any table space?  To be able to use the one bookcase as a BOOKCASE instead of a garbage hold?  It’s the stuff of fantasy right now.

Dear gods I want to be able to live on my own, away from the bullshit.

[clorindascreams]

I’m having horrible anxiety attacks now.  Signs yelling about not feeding the street cats are up, and I’m now afraid.  Even though I DON’T feed them.

Seeing the hate for the cats out in the open like that...it makes me afraid for my own.  I’ve lost so many, and I’m pretty sure they were trapped and killed by these people.  Who probably wouldn’t care if they knew they’d killed wandering pets instead of ferals.

And I’m still afraid of being attacked for it.  Because I own cats, and because Dad has to fucking feed that colony.  That I didn’t approve of it won’t enter into considerations.  I’m his daughter, therefore, I must be part of it.

And I worry about the idiot.  He won’t stop.  And that may lead to attacks on him.  What do I do about that?  How do I deal with whatever comes because of this idiocy?  How many more of my cats will I lose to fuckheads who want to exterminate them?  What will I do if I’m confronted by these assholes directly?

And I worry about being evicted.  Because of the bank foreclosing on the landlady, or her selling the place and moving.  Or getting busted for her little pot garden in the back I try to pretend I know nothing about.  (Nearly impossible now, as it stinks to high heaven.)  I have so little control over my life, and not enough money to prevent homelessness the moment things fall apart.  I can’t rely on my father; he’s 90% of the reason I worry about these things.  He’s so stubbornly stupid, and I keep waiting for him to ruin my life.  Will he kill someone while driving?  Will he do something stupid to wreck the house?  Will he just piss the landlady off, or bring a lawsuit on our heads, or just bring disaster down with money mismanagement?  Granted, he’s more solvent than I am right now, but I still can’t trust him.

I want a secure life, and I have no way to get it.

[clorindascreams]

Small victory against the hoarder.  He decided to let me take some unused foam wedges to the thrift shop.  He also let me throw out two uncovered, dirty pieces of foam, and two non-working fans.

Earlier, I’d yanked out the three full hampers he had in the corner, pulled and sorted two of them, and got his current usable clothes put away in the now-unblocked dresser.  This resulted in one empty hamper that can now be used for dirty clothes instead of storage.

You wouldn’t think this would be such a problem for him.  Clean clothes go in dresser, dirty clothes go in hamper, too-small clothes go to charity.  But he can’t seem to process this by himself.  I had to do the sorting, and he refuses to let me get rid of the too-small t-shirts.  He won’t even LOOK at them, but they have to stay.

Give me a dumpster and a truck to the thrift store, I could have this place in order in less than a week.  But he won’t let go of his useless crap, even while he’s agreeing with me that living this way is awful.

If he was actually working on it, slowly removing items, it would be tolerable.  But what he mostly does is move things around and create new piles as he “sorts.”  the sorting creates no actual consolidation and order, and he still can’t find things he needs when he needs them.  And he won’t do any actual discarding himself.  I have to gently lean on him to agree, then do the deed myself.

And when I create space?  Well, he takes that as an invitation to fill it back up.  A box given for sorting becomes a box storing a jumble of stuff in a pile he quickly treats as an invisible wall.  A box given for storage remains empty, or is again filled with a random jumble and piled in the great wall of forgetting.

I work my fanny off trying to clean and maintain what I can, and getting little projects done.  And he sits in his piles and stares at the TV, then he sleeps, then he goes back to the TV.  It’s a worthless, pointless life.  And I hate that it shapes mine.

[clorindascreams]

Jesus Fucking Christ.

I need screen for my windows.  SCREEN.  As in, that soft mesh thing made of nylon or aluminum that keeps bugs out (and cats in - usually.)  And he buys fucking heavy-duty chicken wire.  WHY DOES HE NEVER UNDERSTAND PROPORTIONS?   I don’t think my hands can even work with this, and this is not what I need on my windows!

I told him what I needed.  When he suggested things, I shot them down because they were not what I needed or wanted.  Then he said he’d bought aluminum screen, and I figured it was at least usable.  (I wanted nylon - aluminum is fucking brittle and breaks when you work with it.)

Heavy-duty metal chicken wire.  Jesus Fuck.  I goddamn told him no chicken wire.  But of course he’s the man, he always knows best.

I put off buying the screen this weekend because I THOUGHT we had screen in the car.  I should have goddamned checked the minute he said he bought it.  Now I’m going to have to run into the hardware store tomorrow or Wednesday.

What hurts most is the clear proof that once again, he can’t be bothered to listen to me, or accept my decisions.  And now I have to yell at him when he gets home.  Really how I love spending my days off.  Fuck.

[clorindascreams]

I actually prayed for him to die today.  Just drive into the mountain or off the overpass, crash, and burn, and remove his immense, smelly ass out of my life.

I actually got hopeful when he was a couple hours late getting home.  But no, just traffic and his appointment starting late.

I feel cheated.  I was actually planning the cleaning for tomorrow.  Instead, it’s normal work.

I can’t even feel bad or ashamed of this now.  it worries me a little.  I don’t want to get to the emotional point that I murder him just to get him out of my life.  But at the same time, I can’t help but want him dead and gone already.  His slow suicide by not giving a shit about his health is just torture.  He probably would have hurt this family less if he had just elected to blow his brains out instead.

Wonderful fucking family life, huh?

[clorindascreams]

I’ve just discovered that you can feel nostalgia for a past you never had.

I was listening to some old filk, some of it recorded live at a convention from the background sound, and suddenly I was near tears, simultaneously wanting to be there, and feeling like I’d already experienced it before.

My parents were Trek fans, but they weren’t Trekkies, and we never did conventions.  My first convention experience as a teenager was pestering an adult to take me to a little one-day comic convention/dealer’s room thing in Miami sometime between ‘86 and ‘89.  My parents didn’t go to a Star Trek convention until Creation ran a few in Waikiki in the 90s.  Those were corporate conventions, and the only filk-like thing I ever heard was The Firm’s “Star Trekkin’” played on infinite loop in the dealer’s room at a few of those.

I never encountered a “fan community” until I got on the internet.  And while I finally have access to one, I have zero personal or friend-making skills.  Dad’s legacy, damn him to hell.

I feel....like I’m almost remembering someone else’s past.  Like I’m just a little ways away from a woman who had a different father, or who’s father was out of the picture as a teen.  Someone who went to conventions with her mother, and listened to her sing filk, and who embarrassed her by writing fanfic and introducing her to strange people in costumes and...I want so much to have had that.  Hell, to be able to go back in time and experience it now.  The bad as well as the good.

I listen to that filk, and I’m almost that person.  I can almost remember sleeping on a hotel room floor listening to older women prattle on, bored with Trek stuff but thrilled at the comic books I might see tomorrow.

And oh, it hurts so terribly, because that’s not what actually happened to me.  The memory is there, but it never was.  I can actually see the hall the filkers are singing in, the cheap folding chairs, the bad lighting, and the too-many people in front of me.  Not understanding half the lyrics, the sound all scrambled in my ears, but enjoying the energy in spite of my natural teen angst.

How can I have this?  How can I remember and miss a life I never had?  It’s torture, but I’m clinging onto this for dear life, because it feels more real and meaningful than my actual memories. 

I feel like I’m going to break apart right now.  And there’s nobody to talk to about it.

[clorindascreams]

Wonder of wonders, he let me throw out a box of VHS last night.  (Hopefully bulk pickup has come by; I’m going to be depressed/pissed if it’s all still on the curb tonight.)

He also said, “I don’t want to keep anything but the Sea-Hunt tapes.”  This, of course, is a lie.  I would happily take him at his word and toss the lot, but then it’s guaranteed to come a day when he can’t find something he only just thought of after 20 years of not caring, and then reproaching me for its loss.

Witness: I asked him about the Relic Hunter tapes soon after that.  “What’s Relic Hunter?”  “That TV show, I think starring Tia Carrere?”  “Oh.  Hang onto those for now, I don’t know if those are on DVD yet.”

He couldn’t even remember the show, but won’t consider parting with a stack of unplayable tapes unless I can offer him a replacement.  And it WILL have to be me; he won’t look it up himself.  In fact, he’ll have probably forgotten about it again by now.  But of course he’ll remember the moment the tapes are tossed.  He always does.  

Today, I was home and he had to go to the doctor.  So I hauled out more boxes and sorted.  Stuff I know he won’t easily part with was stuffed in the cooler I emptied when he let me toss his magnum tapes.  More of that stuff was ferried upstairs and stashed in the other cooler that I half-emptied when I tossed Mom’s old tapes.  This let me toss 4 filthy cardboard boxes.  Two more filthy cardboard boxes are filled with tapes that he MIGHT let me toss.  Maybe.

After all, he hasn’t let me toss a single goddamn catalog.  Not even the ones from two years ago that I found stuffed in a forgotten box.  He must look through them first!  God forbid that he not see what was for sale in 2015!  Why, he might miss knowing about the perfect pair of fat pants he could have owned!

It’s a disease, I know that.  But I don’t accept that he can’t help it.  He knows this is idiotic; he’s admitted it himself occasionally.  He could be working to fix his mind.  But he isn’t.  He does nothing himself.  I have to provide the lift, I have to provide the motivation, I have to carry the task out.  He just gets to sit on his enormous ass in front of the TV saying yes or no to the decisions I present him with.  

And if I ever do get his mess cleared out and his life in order?  He’ll talk about how HE cleared out the crap from his life.  Because the ego is too fragile to admit his own passiveness and culpability in all this.  Something else must always be blamed for his troubles, but he always has to take at least partial credit for being saved from them.

It’s why I wince when he says “thank you.”  I stopped doing things FOR him a long time ago.  I do these things for me, solely because I have to live with him and his nonsense.

Not that he’s yet thanked me for cleaning HIS crap up.  He resents me doing it.  Because it means he has to face things instead of pretending it’s all invisible and unfixable.  I puncture the balloon of his fantasies by messing with his props, after all.

[clorindascreams]

It’s Christmas Eve and Dad hasn’t wrapped any presents yet.

Of course he fucking hasn’t.  We put them in the box.  Once things are boxed, they’re invisible.  Forgotten about.  Part of the wall.  You remind him and he’ll say he’s going to deal with it...but he doesn’t.  He won’t until he’s FORCED to do it.

Then it’s likely a big production that must involve everyone around him.  Because it’s never just the one task.  In order to do the one task, 10 others must be done first!  Usually involved in clearing the space necessary to working on the task.

Normal people either think ahead on this, and slowly clear room before they get to The Task, or they sweep everything in the way to the side/a box/the floor and put it back when they’re done.

Dad is not normal, has never been normal, and cannot do this.  If you want him to get The Task started in a timely manner (never mind FINISHED) you’re better served by clearing the crap away yourself, hauling the supplies out, and then pressuring him to start.  It’s FUCKING EXHAUSTING.

While he literally sleeps the day away, I have baked, taken cookies to the landlady, swept, done dishes, and cleared half of “his” table for him.  Finding not only the usual depressing layer of grime, but the ridiculous bags and piles of mail that should have been thrown out on delivery.  There’s a large bag of nothing but CATALOGS.  There is no need to keep a literal dozen of every type of catalog you buy from; there’s no need to keep any catalog at all!  All of these places have websites.  It takes maybe 5 minutes to leaf through a catalog and yank or mark the pages of interest.  Having a handful of catalogs on your desk is reasonable; having 30 or more is insane. 

Especially when it’s a case of, “put them aside to read later.”  Later never comes, or if it does, it’s too fucking late.  Catalogs are outdated within a week!  They are not valuable collectibles, do not contain important information, and do nothing but take up space.

So, there’s a clean spot now.  The supplies are out and handy.  Will this result in presents being wrapped in time, or will he whine about how sick he’s been, and make us wait two hours past time so he can dick around?  We’ll fucking see!

[clorindascreams]

I would kill to have hot water.

For some goddamn reason, only the solar heater works.  If the day is overcast...we get no hot water overnight.

It’s the rainy season.  I’m lucky to have lukewarm water to shower with.

I’ve got nothing tonight.  What little there was, Dad fucking used up.

I tried to shower.  It’s freezing in here, and the water was icy.  I couldn’t do more than wash off my feet and hands.

My head itches like crazy.  And I can’t even sink-wash, because the fucking sink faucet is too low to duck my head under.

I’ve settled for dousing myself with rubbing alcohol in strategic spots, and soaking my hair.  It’s not helping the itch any; I’m just assuring myself that I won’t wake up to a nasty skin infection.

I fucking hate not having any way to fix this.  The landlady’s apparently not going to hire an expert, the regular workmen don’t know what’s wrong, and Dad’s fucking useless as usual.

So, I get to suffer (and occasionally stink) through the rainy season.  It’s so wonderful, living paycheck to paycheck and being supported by people who don’t give a shit.

[clorindascreams]

Did we get a tree this year?  No, of course not.  Because Dad couldn’t clear the fucking space for it.

The little space I cleared let me put up the 4-foot artificial one.  The one he bought a few years back when again, it was left so late that we couldn’t get ANYTHING AT ALL.

So, it’s a tree that symbolized Christmas depression for me.  Yaaaay.  It is probably better than nothing, of course.  But it’s a symbol of how fucked up things are here.

We haven’t had what I think of as a proper Christmas for many years now.  In a lot of ways, Mom WAS the season.  She was the energy and drive for it.  She was the reason it was an event, why things were organized and worked, and special.

And while she’s gone and can’t be replaced...we’ve never really made something new.  And again, it’s because of Dad.

This should be a time to tell stories about her, remember the good times, remember how she was and what she did.  But we can’t.  If we try, Dad will ruin it.

He wasn’t here for any of these things, really.  He always pulled a disappearing act during tree decoration.  Back in the day, he’d drive off, and we wouldn’t see him for hours on end.  He didn’t care for holidays, or parties, or anything special.  Include him, and he would deliberately ruin it for everyone.

So he has no actual memories to share.  What he has is a maudlin, weepy display of “I’m grieving for a wonderful woman and every word I or you say will make me cry.”  And it would be one thing if it were real grief.  It would be painful, but it would be something worked through.  But it’s not.  

It’s a performance.  To himself, mostly, but still a performance.  He’s gotten the idea this is what grieving is, and thus the performance must always be put on if she is mentioned.  Even now, almost 23 years later, the performance must go on.  There is no remembrance, because all he “remembers” are idealized stories he made up to fill in the fact that he spent most of his time either bossing us around or pulling a vanishing act.

I’ve forgotten so much just in self-defense.  And it depresses me.  My sister and I never really got the chance to sit together and heal.  He had to butt in.  And the holidays...are a performance.  It’s a Thing We Do.  It means nothing.  I’m always disappointed in how it goes, and nowadays I just wish it would hurry up and end already.

I made decorations from Perler beads today.  No real reason; no real need for them.  But I have all these Perler things and it occurred to me to make them.  It was mildly annoying as well as fulfilling, I was glad to finish up and put things away.  But now...

If Mom were alive, she would have joined in.  She made decorations for the hell of it, or to make up for the lack of money to buy them.  She would have either made some with me, or been at another table sewing something.  And that makes me sad.  I picked up crafting after she died.  We never really did it together.  If she were alive, and Dad dead, this room would be set up for crafting.  It would not be full of Dad’s crap.  It would be much cleaner, much neater, and there would be energy.  We’d have baked, there would be plans, and excitement, and so much anticipation.  It would be special.

With Dad, there is nothing.  He sucks energy away; he generates none of his own.  He rains on every parade, he declines to help with anything unless he’s nagged into it, and every day is like every other day.  The only change is how annoying he’ll be today.

And it’s SO FUCKING UNFAIR.  Mom had a lot to give to the world.  She would have friends who treasured her, and added to her energy.  She would have lived, and saved money instead of spending it, and she would have created things.

Dad only exists.  That’s it.  A life spend mostly watching TV.  He has created nothing, improved nothing.  It’s another Christmas of me trying to make a semi-festive effort I can’t feel anymore, and him marching us through the motions until it’s over.

And my sister refusing video chat because she can’t stand to see him, hates talking to him, and we just wish he would learn when to shut up and let others talk.  

Much as my sister also annoys and saddens me, I miss her.  We should have some real connection.  Other families travel to see each other, video chat when they can’t afford travel...and it doesn’t happen here.  It doesn’t occur to Dad; my sister is horrified by the idea.

And I”m left with a big set of nothing.  I often wish I could just ignore everything, just not have the season at all, because the emptiness of what we have just hurts like hell.

I want to walk into that other world.  The one where Mom lived, and Dad dropped dead of a heart attack.  I want a life, and something approaching normal family relationships.

I want a wife or a husband who gives a shit about me, who nags me when I need nagging, and holds my hand when I melt down.  Who drags me to things I don’t think of going to, and who I loved and would willingly do things for.  Someone who would just snuggle against me at night, and who would drop in for lunch occasionally.  Who would love the things I can’t, and make me see them better.  Who I could be stronger for, and who would prop me up a little when I’m too weak.

Mom could have taught me how to make friends.  But I took after Dad, who just sort of mindlessly bulldozes his way into people’s lives, and has friends mostly because people are too nice to tell him off directly (and he couldn’t see a hint with a telescope.)  Only I’m shy, and can’t talk to people at all.  And if I end up in a conversation?  I’m weird, and off-putting, and people really don’t want to be around me.

It’s a wonderful life, all right.  Things would be better if we were gone, and the gone ones were here.  How fucking sad it all is.

[clorindascreams]

Dad went to the doctor’s office.  This is an all-afternoon trip, so I have some lovely time to myself for once.

So I just spent 45 minutes of it hauling boxes from the edge of his pile.  The pile that stretches over 4 feet from the wall, taking up most of the back room.  My god, the sheer LUNACY will never stop depressing me.

I sorted through his goddam boxes of videotapes.  A box of Enterprise.  Thank the gods, something that will be an instant toss, he has the DVD box set.  Two boxes of TV shows and movies.  All available on DVD, most of them he HAS on DVD.

The rest is obscure documentary crapola, which might be harder to get him to part with.  So that’s back in the pile, more neatly stacked, and a lot of dirt knocked off it all.

The end result is about 4 boxes worth of videotapes that I MIGHT be able to convince him to throw the fuck away.  This will clear enough space to move his walker away from my fucking bookcase.  Which will open up space for a tree!

I have also found that the pile is as poorly stacked as you might expect from someone whose main organization tactic is to throw things in boxes “to sort later.”  Which means this pile is a lot less dense than it looks.  Meaning, removing key items from it will reduce the space taken by a THIRD.

Getting some of this shit out of our lives really boosts my energy levels.  I only hope it works.