When is it MY time?

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.