After that whole month of reruns, I’m having a little trouble remembering just what it was that I used to write about. For tonight, it’s a Funky Winkerbean-style entry. Be forewarned.
Travel being my favorite pastime and my my only real vice other than food, I’ve been trying to plan a little Canadian vacation starting next Friday. It will be pretty much the last opportunity I’ll have to get away until after the first of the year. And right now, I have absolutely no idea if I’ll actually be able to go. With my mom currently in the hospital for evaluation and my dad increasingly worse for the wear (he called tonight having forgotten the alarm code), I’m starting to wonder if I’ll ever be able to go anywhere again. Or to have a single fucking day that isn’t defined by drama that’s not really of my making.
I’d like my life back, please. After another few weeks of nothing but stress at work, stress when I can’t even have a night at home anymore, and being too completely worn out to do anything other than watch TV when I do get a night at home, I may be in the hospital for evaluation soon myself. This is not where I wanted (or need) to be right now. I have a great job that comes with lots of vacation time and I can’t enjoy either. And heaven forbid I should want to pursue a career opportunity out of the area. In a lot of ways, I’m really sorry I ever moved back here, not really because I don’t like it but because I feel a little like a caged animal. How sad is it that I find my middle-aged self having to lie to my parents like a sixteen-year-old just to get some time to myself?
And no, realizing that my mom feels like a caged animal everyday doesn’t really add any helpful perspective, thanks.
I know it’s wrong for me to feel so resentful about things they really can’t help, but I never signed on for this. I didn’t have children specifically because I don’t have that caregiver instinct or gene or whatever. I’m heartbroken about what’s happening to my parents but I don’t have it in me to base my whole life around it. If that makes me a rotten son, so be it. I just can’t spend the next four or five years of my life in constant panic mode being the sympathetic, saintly son–no matter how much I love my parents. And I do love them very much. Just not enough to give up everything that makes life worth living for me.
It’s a sad coincidence that I lost the primary component of my emotional support system just as all this was starting for me, so please excuse these occasional outbursts. I used to solve a lot of my problems by thinking out loud in this space. I probably won’t solve this one that way, but it may help a little.