So. How are you doing?

I decided to vent a little.
You don't have to read it. :)

We don't celebrate the holidays anymore, we don't have small humans to spoil and hug and bake cookies with, we don't need more of anything around the house. 
Too much stuff as it is.

No Christmas tree. 
I mean, we *have* one, it's in the shed. 
I probably need to find it a home. 
We're done with it.

I did decorate the kitchen table. 
Put on a Christmas tablecloth on Thanksgiving 'cause that was the one that was clean and haven't removed it. 
The one that had been on the table is still in the laundry room, although it has been washed and folded. 

The other decorations on the table are some boxes containing my new bathroom rugs, a couple gift bags from people who appreciate the care I give their children, some (opened) Christmas cards, I figure if I walk past them ten times a day maybe they'll guilt me into sending a January letter to a few friends, a couple craft items that I brought home but still need to put away until next December... you know, clutter.

I keep looking at it while the mess isn't too bad, saying something like 'oh I'll get this tomorrow' and then not doing it. 

Part of the problem is that I'm once again not feeling great physically. I always have daily pain, which sucks but I usually manage to function. 

What's going on with me since it got cold out is pain that's a lot stronger and I'm having some trouble staying mobile. I went thrift store shopping with Eric yesterday and within about 30 minutes my left knee was full of water and I was limping. I had so much trouble getting my left leg into the car without smacking the car next to me with my door that Eric had to get back out of the car and walk around to my side and hold the door at its widest-without-smacking. Then I had to grab my leg and gently manage to get it into the car. Fun times.

Lots of people have it worse, truly. I know this.
I have medication. I get a lot of rest. 
I have a husband/partner who takes up the slack so I don't have so much to do around the house. 
But it's hard right now physically.

And mentally. 
Christmas is... not my favorite season.

I've been remembering how utterly shitty the holidays were while I was growing up. 
My parents were obsessed with how much money had been spent on our family the year before by various aunties and grandparents, they had these little mental accountants who sat in their grumpy heads and pointed out how cheap they'd look if they didn't reciprocate exactly.

Which no one expected. I had a lot of relatives who, if not wealthy, weren't doing too badly. They could afford to be what my folks saw as extravagant. 

My parents couldn't. 
So the children in the family were shorted so they could spend 50 bucks on Aunt Lorraine, Aunt Jeanne, Grandma Fern.
And no, Christmas shouldn't be all about the presents, and it's not, now. 

But when I was a kid? Yeah. It was. To make it worse, my birthday is exactly two weeks before Christmas. Mom would put on an astounded and cheery tone of voice and say, "Your birthday is so close to Christmas! Instead of a birthday present, we'll get you something really big for Christmas!"

Did they?
Guess.

We had a tyrannical father who escalated so much during the month between Thanksgiving and Christmas that I was just sick to my stomach every day. I was all tied up in knots during school, wanting to retreat and hide wherever I was, not having space anywhere to do so. I never felt safe.

I was scared to death of what crazy shit he'd say or do before we finally got past the holidaze. His mood was not improved by the deaths of his father who died the week before my 13th birthday and then his brother about two years later. He couldn't enjoy the season, he was sad and he was mean. Not a good combination, in case you wondered.

It may be the escalated pain levels and the forced sitting around stuff that causes all this old stuff to bubble up. It may also be that I'm just one of those people who refuses to let go until I've finished processing.

The real work, signified by that overused term, processing, didn't really begin until my dad died a couple years ago. 

I keep remembering things that I'd mostly forgotten. 
I can't say deliberately buried, the memories were there, I just rarely bothered with them.

And it was a long time ago. January 1978, a month after I turned 17, I left home.

Yes, thanks, I've heard all the platitudes.

It's not good for you to hold on to the past. 
Who decided that it's not good for me? Did they know me then? They sure as hell don't know me now or they would not suggest such a stupid thing. Do they have any idea of what happened?

You only have one (father/mother). 
Wow, you did that on remarkably few clues! 
Are you Sherlock Holmes?

They did the best they could. 
What are you basing this on? 
Your own experience? 
You can't base your opinion of their parenting on what you know or what you did with your own kids.

At a minimum, at least one parent who did not stand by and watch abuse might have been, I don't know... better? 

This one has always been a favorite (not really, that's sarcasm) Be the bigger person! 
Yeah, that's right. I should say only good things while I know exactly what was said by my parents to everyone in the small town after I issued an ultimatum and left. People still believe it today.

Reach out and mend your fences. 
Screw you. 
Mend your own. 
My fences are fine, although I call them BOUNDARIES now.

Which leaves Forgive and Forget.
No.
I'm not Jesus and I don't have Alzheimer's.

So you remember my mom has a caregiver named Sheila, right? Only during our texting marathons during a lot of evenings, Mom never spells it the the same way twice. Shayla, Sheela, Shiela, Shiliea... it's pretty creative. 

I didn't correct Mom, no point in it and it doesn't matter anyway. A person with dementia isn't concerned with how well they spell things. And I knew who she meant, even when she called her Shella. We rarely message now, she has lost a lot of her cognitive skills which were never very good in the first place.

But Lyssa and Matt and I have seen the humor in it and during our text/message conversations, we refer to Sheila with a lot of different two syllable words.

So this past week my mom told me that Sprocket doesn't approve of me.
Apparently the fact that I "haven't bothered" (exact words from Slappy, passed on by my mother) to come over and help pack things for Mom's upcoming move to assisted living makes me "look bad".

Scabby used to live in the area where I live now, and SHE managed to drive over to John Day and visit HER parents when they were still alive!! Why, it was at least once a month! That proves that I just don't care.

I know with certainty that the same person who did not defend her children against her husband didn't bother saying anything to Sheetrock in defense of her daughter. Me. The one who has a lot of physical shit going on and wouldn't be any goddamn use helping to pack anyway.

The one who still works full time outside the home despite the aforementioned physical issues. The one who actually needs the money she earns. Yes, I love my job, but it's to my benefit to help bring money in. 

It's not even any use to explain it to my mom. She probably won't believe it and wouldn't dare stand up and say something to her 'care' giver, either.

Speaking of care, I have heard the way this stupid cow speaks to the elderly dementia patient she's supposed to be helping. If she's there when I talk to Mom on the phone, she's constantly correcting what she says. "No Sally, you did that on TUESDAY, not today!!" 

She is loud and talks over Mom, she corrects her and disagrees with her in the same loud voice and she sounds sarcastic as hell. 
Think Roseanne Barr. 
I've never met Snoopy and I hate her. I may not like my mom much, but she has dementia and that's not how you deal with a person whose mind is slipping.

So I don't want to make the 10+ hour round trip, sleep in a motel that costs me a day's wages, eat shitty restaurant food, be too cold half the time and too warm the other half, get a headache and be exhausted and in even MORE pain when I get home to go hang out with some old woman I don't even like. 

It's even less likely that I'm going to visit her in her new location, which is all the way on the Oregon/Idaho border and more like a 9 hour trip ONE WAY.

Why don't I go see her?  

I just don't care to. 

We don't have anything to talk about, she has about four marbles left rolling around in her brain, she's confused and not sure about anything from one day to the next. The anesthesia from the surgery necessary after her fall last summer scrambled her head pretty well. Same thing started my dad's steep decline. General anesthesia is a really bad thing for old people, you'd think they'd come up with something better, unless of course killing them off is the idea, in which case it's pretty efficient.

So when Mom informed me that I have failed to impress Smacker, I told her, "I don't have any control over what Sheila thinks of me, but I can tell you I don't really give a shit. 
She doesn't know me and doesn't know my life. 
Tell her to fuck off." 

I don't think Mom has told her that, though. Ha. I'm 100% sure Mom didn't jump to my defense when Spooky started bad-mouthing me any more than she defended me from the ogre who was my father, though.

From the sound of it, Sheetrock has done a bit of cleaning out Mom's house on her own. A head start, so to speak.

Steve says a lot of stuff is missing. Mom's jewelry is mostly gone, for example. Obviously we have no way of proving it. Whatever. I don't want her shit.

The old Ford Explorer, complete with poop-stained seats, belongs to Sheila now. Mom breathlessly and excitedly informed me that it has ALL NEW seat covers and a new steering wheel cover and that it's very clean and looks so nice!!!

"She's taking such good care of it!" Mom says, in the same bright tone she uses when Sheila is there and she says, "She's taking such good care of me!"

Sheila is getting PAID to take care of Mom, in case you wondered. An hourly wage that's more than I earn, and no taxes or SS taken out. All in cash.

So anyway, I'm crabby.
I have spent a great deal of the break holed up in what we refer to as The Momcave, but you can call it office space, TV room, dressing room, craft room... pretty much all of those things happen in here. It's chilly, and I can put the space heater under my desk, bundle up and while I'm in here, not hurt as much.

Anyway.
I don't spend my whole life going 'aww gee, my life as a kid was shit' and while I don't like being in constant pain, like I said up there, a lot of people have it worse.

Hopefully I'll start feeling a little better and have some kid stories for you next week. I've been collecting ideas and supplies for a lot of fun things for the young humans and have added 'charge the camera' to my list of shit that needs to get done.

Funny story about that. I have a 15 year old SLR Canon camera. It's a nice camera, and takes wonderful photos.

Every time I bring it to a new program there are several kids who have no idea what it is.

Amusing.

They love having their photo taken, but then they want to see it right away. I don't show it to them, the screen isn't very big and they can wait for the photos to be printed just like I did when I was a kid.

Haha.

So, how are you doing?