Frustration, So Very Much Frustration

I know it’s weird, but my mom and W are pretty close to the same age. Yes, that’s what marrying someone so much older than yourself brings – a husband and mother in the same peer group. Fun times.

They are both of similar age, and yet one is so much more active than the other. Neither exercises per se. However, one gets up every day to cook and clean and babysit and teach music lessons. The other occasionally does a load of laundry and plays a helluva lotta solitaire on the PC. Guess which one I’d rather have living in my house?

I have just about had it up to here (picture me standing in front of you gesturing with my hand palm down just above my head in the universal “up to here” gesture) with W. Now that he doesn’t drive he has abdicated even more responsibilities than ever before. Now that he can’t drive N to practice or to the library or to a friend’s house or anywhere else, one might be tempted to think he would have more time on his hands so that he might be able to take on a few additional household responsibilities. Not so! As a matter of fact he now must sit around and wait for me to play taxi driver on my off hours to take him where he needs to go. Not that he can’t take the bus. He can. He does. But sometimes that’s just so much less convenient than having your own personal driver who will take you, wait for you, and bring you back all on your own schedule.

It isn’t his health either. Although he had some bad times earlier in the year, an adjustment of meds and some other medical intervention has him back on his feet again, feeling better than he has in a long time.

So what’s his excuse? Well, he does as much as he can he says. He’s very busy he says. Yet N complains that W is always on the ‘puter playing solitaire. TS2 has mentioned how W seems to spend a lot of time playing solitaire on the ‘puter. I’ve noticed W playing lots of solitaire on the ‘puter.



Sigh. . .



The more things change, the more they stay the same.

More Irrational Anger

A third death on top of the first two is just too damned much. This time it is my cousin’s mother-in-law. Now I know that doesn’t sound like a very close relationship to me. However, when we lived in LOH we hung out with my cousin’s family a lot, and his MIL was often around. I got to know her, not terribly well, but well enough to know what a wonderful, caring mother and grandmother she was.

Just a couple of months ago she was diagnosed with an aggressive form of cancer. It was fast moving, painful, and debilitating. Nothing could be done but treat the pain and wait. Wait for her to die. Many friends and family came to see her in her last months. My cousin’s family life was thrown into upheaval. It has been a whirlwind.

There are so many things for which I am angry, some big, some small, some petty as hell. Sometimes I think it is just easier to be angry about the petty things than to face the big things. We focus on petty little shit because it doesn’t feel quite as scary as the big stuff. For instance, I am pissed off that due to her death, my cousin will not be able to make a visit to see me and attend an event with me as planned. It’s easy to be angry about that. It’s easy to focus on poor me, and oh we’ll be missing out on all the fun we would have had. It’s harder to focus on the unfairness of ten adolescents and children losing their grandmother who loved them, who loved to watch them as they are growing into fine young adults. That is just too big for me to wrap my head around.

While we’re talking about petty let’s talk about how I feel one death keeps upstaging the last one, like somehow we need to be done grieving grandmother to grieve father and then finish grieving father so we can grieve with and comfort cousin and his family on their loss. I know intellectually that isn’t how it is, and that there’s room for all the grief to coexist, but somehow emotionally it just feels like in order not to become overwhelmed you just have to drop one to move on to the next. Rational? No, but that is the feeling I have.

Truth be told I just want people I care about to stop dying.

And one last thing to get off my chest for right now. I know there is a certain segment of Christianity that rejoices in the death of a loved one because that loved one is now with Jesus. That’s fine if that’s how they want to deal with it for themselves and their loved ones. However, when sending “condolences” to me don’t tell me that I should be rejoicing now that Dad is with Jesus. I am not rejoicing. I will not rejoice at Dad’s death no matter what spin you put on it. Dad may well be with Jesus now and may be in a better place and may be without pain and sorrows, and that’s great for Dad. That’s great for Jesus because I’m sure He’ll enjoy Dad’s company. And it still means I’m left here without my Daddy. And it hurts. And I grieve. And I don’t rejoice at all that God took Dad home to be with Him. I may find some small comfort in knowing those things, but I surely don’t and won’t rejoice. I’ll surely remember, though, who those people are who have told me to rejoice and rest assured I’ll rejoice, maybe even dance on their graves, when they die and go to be with God.

White Hot Anger

Both Pastor and Freud have now made suggestions to me that I write about my feelings either in a journal or in letters to people that will never be mailed. So here I am. My deepest darkest thoughts always go here in my anonymous blog where they are read only by anonymous internet people. Just because my deepest darkest thoughts no longer have to do with infidelity and indiscretion doesn’t mean they are fit for public consumption in the light of day so they seem to be appropriate here.

Grief. One of the stages of grief (and they aren’t linear you know but more like a spiral) is anger, and oh boy do I have a whole lotta anger going on lately. There are very few with whom I am not angry, and my anger gets pointed in many directions. My writings now and at least for a while are going to be my expressions of all the anger I have so that I can work my way through it. It may get ugly. It may not always make sense. It may seem ridiculous. That’s okay. It’s all just me being me and trying to come out the other side a little saner and hopefully a lot less angry.

At the core of the anger is that I hate not being in control. I am a control freak. I like everything just the way I like it. Death very clearly removes any illusions a person may have about being in control. If I were in control I certainly wouldn’t have allowed Dad to die within two months after my grandmother died. That is just not fair. It is not fair at all that just a few weeks after burying her mother my mom had to bury her husband. Life is not fair, and that just pisses me off. I am angry. I know that there is nothing I can do to change the way things are, and that makes me angry. I am angry at the world. I am angry at God.

I am angry at everybody who expects me to just pick up and move on. I got the three day bereavement leave at work, and then I’m expected to be back at it. That’s it. Suck it up buttercup and get your work done. Well, sorry but it doesn’t work out that easily. I’m distracted. My mind wanders. I have moments of overwhelming sadness. I have moments of clarity and focus, but they are fewer and farther between than they need to be for normal functioning. I’m told by those who know – like Pastor and Freud and by others who have lost a parent – that what I’m going through is normal, that I should be easy on myself and not expect myself to be okay yet. Well, sure, but they aren’t my bosses. They aren’t the people that expect me to just keep on keepin’ on.

I am angry at W because he doesn’t cut me any slack either. All of the little things and big things that annoy me are magnified, and it makes me angry, and he doesn’t get it, and he wants me to cut him some slack because he’s grieving. Sorry buddy, but it’s my dad that just died, not yours. You have got to stop expecting me to do everything just like normal and to react just like normal and take care of things just like normal. When the fuck does it ever get to be my turn to be the mess, to need help, to be taken care of? WHEN?

Anger.

It is so overwhelming right now, the one overriding emotion that is swallowing me whole.