I’ve been thinking a lot lately about myself. My physical and mental health, my freedom, my
feelings. I find myself asking myself, “when
do I get to live my life?”
I’ve spent the majority of my life (even more so in the last
5 years) worrying about everyone else and trying to figure out how *I* could
make things better for them. How can I
make them happy? This is particularly
true with my family. You see, I was born
wired to please. I did well in school, I
was relatively behaved, I give more of myself to people than I give to myself
because I have a need to please them.
When do I get to please myself?
Apparently never because if I do, I have this overwhelming fear that it
will displease someone else.
I lay awake at night worrying about things out of my
control. Things that friends and doctors
tell me are not even my responsibility. What kind of things? Well, the fact that my parents spend money
like it’s going out of style. There is
no frugality there. Dad says he may have
to take money out of the 401K to make ends meet. Ten minutes later, he’s out buying chips and
ding dongs and cigarettes. I pay them
money. It’s not a lot in the grand
scheme of things. I certainly would be
paying more if I were living on my own.
But now I am crippled with fear of exercising my right and my NEED to move
on and grow up and have my own live and my own place. Fear that they will go under. Fear that they’ll sell our summer home. And then EVERYONE will hate me. I’ll be the one who put the nail in the
coffin. I’m the one who made them have
to sell a place we all love. Why is it
MY responsibility to be the second income in the family? I get no benefit of doing so, aside from
being able to live there. They get tax
free money – over $7000 a year to be exact.
Do I want my dad to essentially have to absorb a $7000 pay cut? NOT AT ALL.
But, perhaps if that money is going away, they’ll be forced to change
their habits. If they don’t change their habits, it’s on them, right? It’s so hard for me to accept that, and
relinquish that false sense of responsibility.
I also worry about my little brother. He seems lost to me. He has no guidance. I think that he has a better relationship with
me than my parents. But he can also be a
player. I honestly don’t think that I
had much guidance either. But I was a
pleaser. And a self starter. And a go-getter. So I feel this responsibility to my brother
to “show him the way”. Did he do
this? Did he fill out that form?
The more I try to exercise any sort of choice that affects
the household, the more push back I get.
I put stuff in the fridge, I get yelled at. I buy a new pan I get yelled at. I put stuff in the pantry I get yelled
at. “There’s no room for this stuff,” I’m
told. Do they not realize how crushing
that is? There’s no room for what you
want or what you need here. That’s the
basic message. Just sit here and be, and
pay us for the privilege. When I say
something about it, I’m greeted with a crying mother. Therein lays the rub. How do you respond to making your mother
cry? Me, the pleaser, I immediately apologize. What the hell am I apologizing for? Why is it OK for her to make me feel like my wants
and needs are an inconvenience (thus hurting MY feelings), but it’s not ok for
me to call her on it?
I know that I need to remove myself from the situation – for
more reasons than one. I need to be out of
the drama (which is not my responsibility) in order to focus on my needs. I DESERVE to have my own place where I can
have whatever food/utensils/pans/tools/pictures/furniture/plants/pets that I
want. I’ve worked hard and I deserve
that. I deserve to have a place where I
can invite friends over for dinner and bbqs and to watch movies/games/etc.
whenever the hell I want. How the hell am I supposed to meet a man when I can’t
invite HIM over my house? I have no
privacy to do that. Sure, it works for
teenagers, but not for a nearly 40 year old woman. I feel successful in my career, but that
pride and success does not transfer into my personal life. If anything, the self loathing and despair I
feel in my personal life carries on into my work life. I don’t feel good about MYSELF, so I don’t
feel I can do more, or deserve more. I
don’t know where my confidence has gone.
I lost it somewhere around the time I turned 32 and settled that this would
be my life – Living at home with no say, no companion, and all the baggage that
goes along with that.
There is going to be a day that my parents will REALLY need
me to be home. There will be a time when
they CAN’T do things or figure things out.
At that point, I realize that I will have to put my life on hold. So isn’t NOW the time for me to get out there
and be my own person? It’s not fair that
I bear this burden solely because I haven’t found someone to spend my life
with. Sadly, I feel that it will never
happen while in this situation. It’s as
though it’s expected that since there is no one in my life, there is “no reason”
for me to leave. It’s not fair that my
mother uses her own insecurity against me.
My wanting – no, needing – to move out is not a reflection on her. It’s a reflection on ME and my desire to be grown
up. To be normal. To not be the stereotypical fat, insecure
girl who stays with her parents because she doesn’t know how to grow up or find
and hold a relationship. I know people
who *I* see that way. The thought that
people may think the same of me hurts like hell.
We don’t talk about feelings in my family. Sadly, if I say most of this to my parents,
my mom would go to her “go to” response, “get over yourself” and “yeah, because
you have it SO BAD here.” Her feelings =
valid. Mine = ridiculous.
I don’t need drugs. I
need balls. I need to get over the fear
of rejection and the unrealistic expectations that I’ve put on myself. I need to bite the bullet, and I need to do
it soon.
Whether Christmas Day is important to you for religious or other reasons, or whether it is simply a welcome day off, everyone knows the story: what happened was completely unanticipated by the parents. Their newborn child was born in an emergency situation, far from home, in a strange place; the child needed to be placed in an emergency crib, one that a day before would have been unthinkable. A "manger"? I'm sure the baby's mom didn't envision this particular outcome. I'm sure the dad must have been a little freaked out: unprepared to have his brand new family spending their first few days together sharing space with strangers, instead of the privacy that comes from being in your own home. Not a normal birth, not a normal script to the first days of life for the child. Imagine the family's reaction when they learned that there was also some risk to the life of their newborn son. Imagine how it must have felt to have a parade of people coming by, unannounced and non-stop to check on the baby in the strange bed, even if some of them brought presents. No one knew exactly what to say. Can you imagine the look of visitors' faces when they looked around the space where the baby was sleeping? They might have said, "I'm glad this was here, but this is no place for a baby to be." Most of the visitors had never seen a baby in such a strange place. What about the smells? Imagine the real-life noises from everything in that scary strange place. Had to be a scary time in the life of the new family, don't you think?
