Disappearing Act

I'm disappearing for awhile...from social media.

Life is complicated.  Why does it have to be so damn complicated?

Well my life at least...

Ha...no more posting - make that pining - about my big city crush.  No longer relevant.  No, I've taken 20 steps backward since my divorce 3 years ago.  I recently sold my home and moved in with my mother.  Temporarily was the thinking for that brilliant move.  I was struggling financially and LP is in his senior year at University so I wanted to be able to afford to get him housing near campus.  Couldn't do both mortgage and that...not that his apartment was the sole reason.  It wasn't.  Life's hard on the outside...no help from his dad so what the heck...I sold and put ALL my stuff in storage and moved with just my bed and clothes to my mom's.

UGH.

One week before I moved mom suffered a stroke.  Fortunately, it was mild and she does not have any physical residuals except that her foot is numb...her driving foot.  So she cannot drive.   Which has made her - and me - crazy.  Also, mentally/emotionally it has affected her.  She has just enough short term memory loss to really jack with things.  It's like living with freaking Dory from 'Finding Nemo'.  She doesn't remember stuff and then gets furious if I gently say that she was told this or that.  So now I just don't bother to say anything.  I will let her just think that the doctor didn't explain - several times now - why she now takes Metoprolol instead of Toprol or why she got a convection oven capacity with the new oven she purchased.  "I don't want a convection oven."

Well you got one now.

So her having the stroke a week before I closed and moved wreaked havoc with all that I had to do.  I mean I thought I was going to lose my shit.  I know that sounds very selfish but it is truthful.   This whole only child thing is not what it's cracked up to be.  I got WAY behind the 8 ball with packing up the house and getting the hell out of there.  Thank God for a handful of wonderful friends that came over and pitched in.  I could have never done it without them and I realize how thankful I am for them and how invaluable they are.

My living with my mother is reinforcement to me that she and I will NEVER understand each other.  Right now she is PISSED that she can no longer drive and she takes it out on me.  Going to the fucking store is a complete nightmare.  My daily commute is between an hour and an hour and a half.  So by the time I hit the door at 6:30 p.m. she's mad that we're having to start out to the store so late.  SORRY!

Negative - negative - negative.  That's what good old 'home' is.  Nothing new.  Same shit as all my growing up years.  Dinner was spent with my face in my plate while she unloaded - railed against everyone in her day that pissed her off.  On and on and fucking on...she barely took a breath.  Just an ongoing barrage of all these horrible people's horrible actions during her day.  Did I mention the woman worked for 34 years and came away from that experience with not ONE friend??  Sadly, mom never learned how to be or have a friend.  Which is totally weird because her mother, my beloved grandmother, and her sister, my beloved aunt, were very social and had many friends.  Mom?  Nope.  She has one friend from high school that she talks to by phone maybe once a month and then she totally complains about her and their conversations.

Anyway, seems there's never a good evening to go to the store.   Oh...wait...yes there is...it's the evening I have something planned.  Passive-aggressive is the MO du jour.  Many a time in these last four months have I literally walked through the front door only to be met by an onslaught of venom.  I proceed with caution but I don't know why I do because each of my approaches is met with the same reception.  So far Monday - Tuesday - Wednesday and Friday are HORRIBLE evenings to go to the store.  This past Friday - because she hadn't wanted to go the ENTIRE earlier part of the week and I was busy Thursday - I came through the door, said 'hello' and 'Ready to go to the store?" and I get the hands thrown up in the air "Well we need to eat and we need to go to the store and if we do both we won't get home til 10:30!!"  I feel like saying well if you didn't take so fucking long to do both, they're very doable in a reasonable amount of time!

I posted a recent foray to the grocery store on my FB account.  It was meant to be humorous...it was about the pursuit of chocolate syrup and how the canned syrup (her preferred product) is "the real chocolate syrup" and the squeeze bottle isn't.  THREE stores later I find the fucker and compare the two - THE SAME.  Well, I thought this account was pretty funny but my FB friends doped it all up and were saying things like "you're in charge now" (uh, NOPE - she's still fierce which is the majority of the problem) and "oh cherish these days together."

SERIOUSLY.??

My mom is not difficult and stubborn and tempermental bc of her stroke or old age.  She has always been difficult and selfish and a racist (oh, haven't gone THERE yet) and she's always given me a run for my money.  So I deleted the post.  What my dear friends don't know nor understand is this is the woman who is an island.  She is selfish and controlling.  My children do not want to come around her because she never cares what they are doing or how they are.  It's always blah, blah, blah about how bad the world is, how bad our country is.  She will proudly state "I am a racist and proud of it."  Wow.  Once we were talking - at Thanksgiving no less - and the subject of God and the current President came up.  She said something totally ignorant and I said "Well you know God loves President Obama too"  Haha She looked at me and sarcastically said "Oh really??"

Yeah she's a real treat.  She told me when I was 16 and having enough trouble with teenage angst that she never intended to have children.  She has always driven home the fact that my father was a drunk and 'brought shame on the family'.  Holy crap the man's been dead for 52 years can't she just give it a fucking rest???

Oh and did you know that I get my clothes from Omar the Tent Maker??  I'm about 5'7" and probably a size 16.  Haven't always been...since my kids came along I got chunky.  She's always on me about my weight.  Her?  She's 5' now (was 5'2") and NEVER  a weight problem.  I made the mistake of recently divulging my current weight to her, mostly because I was a little surprised when I went to the drs and the scale said !!.  She literally recoiled in horror and exclaimed "Oh my God!  Why are you like that?!  Your mother and father weren't FAT!!"

Wow...just WOW.

Also she has relented and said I could get my sofa out of storage and put it in her livingroom.  Because...wait for it...she doesn't want hers to get sunken in from my sitting on it.

Oh...My...God.  Shoot me now.

I feel guilty that I feel so negatively toward her.  I have always struggled with the 'honor thy Father and thy Mother' thing.  I try to see that she's my only parent and who knows how much longer she has (my personal feeling is God's going to keep her here until we can get it right and I'm afraid that's gonna take a LONG time).  I have tried to be company for her.  There's very little we have in common TV watching wise and with the things we do - like 'Dancing with the Stars' - she and her comments will always make it such a wonderful viewing experience.  NOT.

Every time someone of color is on she HAS to comment.  "Ugh another black one" or "What IS she? She's not white."  Oh God, how am I going to survive.  I thought I was done with living like this YEARS ago.

Please pray for me...