another weird thing

 today is Easter Sunday. I went to church, sang in the choir, it sucked, but you know, it always does. I've come to terms with our choir director, but the organist, a Carnegie Mellon trained musician, well, she's just calling it in. there is no emotion, no passion, no nothing. where are we going. our pastor has a great feel for the theatrics of religion and how it moves a heart to God, but he has nothing to work with. it's not that she doesn't have it, it's just that she doesn't work it anymore. I could. but they don't need me.

I thought we'd take easter dinner to my mother in law who is skittish to drive to our house. it was all arranged. and now, stepdaughter is lazy and does not want to bother and I'm so angry I can't speak or type or do anything at all. so I drank a lot of bourbon and I"m angrier still. who called her and said , sorry, I can't be bothered to keep the arrangements I made with you to make you feel loved. I guess I don't love you enough to get out of bed and make food to take to you to make you feel like family for Easter. I just can't be bothered. I couldn't do that.

what the hell was I thinking.

he's an odd little man. he's skinny and wiry, but with a beer belly. his balance is bad, he talks like he's drunk when he's not, and when he is he is completely unintelligible. and he talks with his mouth full of food. he stumbles. he's clueless. he can't remember anything.

he is a good man, but he has a brain injury. most of this is not his fault, but here I am all these years later wishing I had a normal man. one who could walk and talk and make love to me at age 60. one who could earn a living. one who knew about mortgages and taxes and the cable bill and what to do if a pipe broke. how to fix a car.

oh, wait. I had a man like that. I had a house and a car and two babies, but I cheated on him and he threw me out.  what was I thinking.

yeah, it changes but it's all the same

well, it might have been new. but it might have been just the same old bullshit after all. I was proud of my effort. I felt like I had succeeded at something important. but nobody cared. Nobody said thank you.

She said it was fine. It was what it needed to be. I'm sorry you were angry and disappointed that nobody needed you to play the service, but actually, I had never asked you to do that. You just assumed. Well, the conversation I had with the pastor several months ago included the part about if the organist is not available, you will be called next. She wasn't. I was there. Somebody decided something else and nobody told me. I assumed I was needed. I was not.

Therein is the current problem. I am not needed.  And I am not valued. And if I am valued, it is not in a way that means any damn thing to me.

My first husband used to tell me how much he thought about me and our son while he was driving his truck down the road and how much he loved us. But when he was home, he was either asleep or gone with his friends or drunk. He didn't spend any time with us showing us all that love, so I told him I didn't want to hear about it, it did not mean anything to me if it could not translate into actions.  I still think that. sometimes someone will say, well, we want you here. we need you here. but there is no useful work for me that I can see. the role I used to inhabit is filled. Even the backup role seems to be filled. It could all be done so much better if someone with a little skill could help out.

I am a classically trained musician with 50 years of experience. I am a published composer. My music resume includes a song that has been consistently performed by a band of some renown for nearly 20 years.  I can produce a new song or an arrangement with practically no notice. I can play both choir parts written on 4 staves and the accompaniment. I can play anything you put in front of me whether I have even heard it or not. Not to mention all the knitting.  I have raised 5 reasonably successful human beings. and it does not mean a thing to anyone, not even me.

I realize that if I can't find a way to love myself I am doomed. I will repeat again and again all the mistakes I've previously made until it kills me. But no money and no transportation and really, no will to live traps me as surely as if I were in a dungeon. I lack self-expression because I lack self. Without my parents and my church and the opportunity to perform, in this setting, I don't know who I am. When we were in Township and I could be Rowan, it did not matter, I could be whoever I wanted to be. Nobody judged me, not in my own home. But that's not where I am now. Now I live in a fucking commune that used to be my family home and now is not. I trap myself in my own room and I trap myself in my own head and nothing good comes of it, nothing at all.

things might be different now

I did a thing that I can be proud of. I spent a month playing the piano about 2 hours at a time a couple of times a day to learn the 20 pieces of music needed for the Lenten season and Easter, so I could play one single choir practice, and one Lenten service. This meant that I had to stay sober, and work at it, and I did. I played the practice like a fucking rock star, although it was cut short because the director had no confidence in me. the service had another pianist lined up because someone else had no confidence in me. my son says, be patient, people will gain confidence in you as they see you are reliable, that you show up on Sunday, that you show up on rehearsal day. That you do what is asked of you. Nobody knows about the drinking, they think it's my mental illness that hampers me. That is exactly why I told nobody. NO BODY about it in the past. or about my past addictions. or about the anti-depressants that were supposed to solve everything that didn't. or the therapy that was cut short by the insurance company so had no chance to work. it's why I let nobody in, never have.

So, tonight, I feel good about what I did. I worked at it, and I succeeded. That is a novelty. Now I know if there is a task given to me, I can stand up to it. I can come through. This is new.

and I know how you smell. and what your dick looks like, and you fingers. I know the texture of your hair. and how you married a friend of mine.

and I remember that yours is the biggest one I've ever seen. and how we went to New York City 9, count them 9 times. for like 3 or 4 days each time. and how you sneaked into my house at night after my kids were asleep for like 10 years.

I waited for you. for 11 years, I stayed single, waiting for my prince. and I don't care that you have a little dick, I only care that you love me every day. But finding out that you don't remember our wedding hurts me. that you have no special memories of that day crushes me.

I miss my dad. I think that's the problem. I wonder if I could have saved him. and if saving him could have saved my mom. I miss my mom. and my dad. and now I miss you too. because you are not who I hoped you would be from the beginning. you said, I hope you won't resent me for this, and I do. 15 years later, I totally do. you didn't give me a decent ring, and you didn't let me have a decent wedding. and last year, when I asked for a vow renewall, just something to have in my church, you said no. you thought it would cost you money so you said no. you are a dick. and so, I am drunk again.

it's really all about sleep. I can't. so I drink. years ago, that was the problem, that was the solution. so now, it's the same. so I quit. I quit for days. and what happens is that first I can't sleep. and then next I sleep very shallowly. and then, there are the nightmares. and after that, if I can get that far, there are dreams that I can't figure out.  and I haven't gotten past that for a few months now. I think I could deal with the rest of it if I knew I could sleep. should I ask for help? the last person I asked had me, oh take 10 trazadone if you want to. is that healthy? and I did sleep. but the deductible on the insurance  meant that I couldn't see her anymore, had no help anymore. it's still about sleep.

Feeling angry and discontent. feeling like nobody understands that as old friends fall away, I feel less and less like I know who I am. found out that the neighbors that share a garden with us, are also selling out and moving away. combine this with how I don't know how I fit at church anymore, and that I have no real life friends, I know that the past is now invalid. I need a future. I need new friends. I have new neighbors, and that might be a place to start. I wish, wish that I felt comfortable finding a new church also, one with a decent music program. one with a few members. one that didn't feel like it's dying. but then where is home?

I think the problem is that nobody needs me. if I decide to just sit on the couch and do absolutely nothing, nothing happens. nothing at all. nothing bad, nothing good. just nothing. if I do no laundry, well, neither does my husband, but he does not care if he stinks, he just wears the same clothes. son does nothing either. nobody pushes him, nobody pushes me either. nobody needs me, therefore my existence does not matter. I can keep on killing myself with bourbon if I want to. there is nobody to care.

so, tomorrow my second parents are moving. They have lived in their house 10 years longer than my parents did in this house, and I have never known a time when they weren't there. Their youngest child, their only daughter has been my friend since I was 11 and she was 9, and she is moving them into a retirement home closer to her house.

It's her choice. it's not the one I made, but she's not me. She has a life, I didn't at the time, or even since. I don't blame her, I'm just really, really fucking sad. It was her house I ran to when it all got too much for me here, when the ridicule and the physical  assault got too much. Her parents were, and continue to be in love, mine did not even tolerate each other very well most of the time. They were mean and I think they hated me. Hers were loving, supportive. They had time for her. And they talked to me.

They have been there for me since my parents died. I have hid at their house most days for at least a little while. We have shared food, and if I was short a couple of eggs, that's who I called. She taught me to make Italian food. I made her soup, and sometimes chicken if she needed it. I used my nursing skills to tend to Mr Murphy's life threatening wound. I shoveled their sidewalks and took out their trash. I calmed frantic Fran when she needed it. and tomorrow, they will be gone.

Just a few miles up the road, but I don't have a car or a driver's license. also, I'm a drunk.  and they are in their 80's. and the only time their daughter ever calls me is when she needs me to do something for them, and if they aren't there, she won't ever call me again and I will lose yet another friend. so she'll be gone too.  this is too hard.

I just went and asked my husband for comfort. instead, he tried to justify to me the decisions she made. I don't care about that, I just want someone to hold me and listen to me and hand me a hanky because I can't fucking stop crying about this. he's drunk and stoned and I am not. and I am jealous. I feel like nobody understands me or anything about what I might need. And that makes me pathetic, and a loser, and tomorrow, I'm going to buy some more bourbon, because, well, Jim Beam, he gets it. or he doesn't care. one way or another, I'll be looking out my bedroom window into a dark house for the first time tomorrow night. no more accidentally left on light in the kitchen. no more light in Mr Murphy's room when he gets up late to go to the bathroom. they will be one more set of people that will be lost to me, and I will keep on forgetting who I am, or who I used to be, and no way of figuring out who I might be in the future. lost again.

So, my first husb and gave me herpes. and I've been married for 14 years, and before that I was single for 11 years, and I never told. I just made sure that I never let anybody touch me when I had a sore. I never ever told anybody, but last night I told my husband. What would he think after all these years of me not telling?  All he did was ask me if it hurt. and what did I need. It's sad, just really sad. I spent all day drunk yet again. What the hell is wrong with me? and then got called out by my son. I did the laundry, I made dinner, I helped him replace the brakes on the car, and I got yelled at for being drunk. so what? and now I hate myself even more than I did before.

Disgruntled

So disgruntled. People just pick up and go. They have cars, they have passports. They have money, and they just go. Me, trapped in this house. Me, trapped in my head. I just want out. But I don't know how to get out.

I want to go to Disney World. I want to go on a cruise. I want to go to Ireland, to Scotland. Hell, I want to go to California. I want to see my grandchildren in North Carolina. I want to meet my mother in Seattle. I can't even go to fucking Wal Mart. I hate being so isolated, but I also hate asking people for things, like charity. I beg my husband to take me somewhere, anywhere on his day off, but all he wants is to sit on the sofa and smoke pot. Since he is the only income in this household, I don't feel like I can insist. If he wants to sit around and get fucked up on his day off, why should he consider stuck me? And he doesn't. He's disgusting, the odd combinations of clothes he wears, his lack of personal hygiene, but yet he bought roses. He put my mom on the potty when I couldn't.  I don't know how to insist.

I had to stand it, somehow. I had to make decisions. I had to get my mother back in bed in the middle of the night when she got up to go to the bathroom and forgot she needed a walker. My parents moved back into the master bedroom together for the first time in many years so dad could help her in the night. But he never woke when she got up, only when she fell. I never got an entire night's sleep because somebody always needed something in the night. And, I continued to drink.

Finally, it all got the better of me, and I quit. I asked my son to take care of the parents for a couple of days so I could puke and shake and sweat and so forth. He agreed, so I did it. Cold turkey. and it sucked big time. but I did it. and about a week later, things started to go to hell.

Later, a doctor told me that it was a known thing, psychotic break after quitting drinking. I don't remember a whole lot about that time, but apparently I was doing weird stuff. I applied for a loan to get a new roof for our house. I yelled at the coin man. I couldn't write or spell or dial a phone. I ended up in the psychiatric hospital, taken once by my son, once by my friend Alan, and I was so weird. Even before the initial diagnosis of bipolar years before, I was never so screwed up. Even after I got out of the hospital, I was really no better. None of the anti-psychotic drugs worked. None of the sedatives worked. Nothing. So I got put back in the hospital. Calmed down after a while, went to follow up rehab. Back in the hospital. back to follow up rehab. and then my dad died, all of a sudden. I went to tell him dinner was ready one night and found him with a mouthful of blood, struggling to breathe. Two hours later, he was dead.

I was fine, I dealt. And then my mother really lost her mind. And my brother decided that I had the nursing training and the availability to care for her all by myself.

My son worked overnight, so he was asleep all day. My husband has a brain injury and accompanying physical disabilities, so he was no help. And my mom hated him, so was he inclined to help? Notsomuch.
I never blamed him. And her mental status disintegrated without Dad to center her, and her physical condition deteriorated because she wouldn't eat, and she continued to fall. She refused to leave her bed. She didn't know me anymore. And my pleas for help fell on deaf ears.

This is too hard. Need more bourbon--

the next step

So, I found myself in my childhood home, in my childhood bedroom. With my parents. A place I not only never expected to be, I never, ever wanted to be. I was not the chosen child despite being the eldest. I was always at odds with my mother, crazy about my father and totally unwilling to get involved. I felt misunderstood. They didn't get my husband, an unusual man to be sure. They mostly disagreed with every single one of my choices. I thought my brother would have the care of the parents because it seemed he could do no wrong. Now, I love my brother to distraction, but he's a sneaky wee man. He flies under everybody's radar, which is ironic since that is what he does for a living. I just thought it would be his responsibility to choose things for them because they didn't really like me. So I consulted him. He said, well, you're available. it's not like you have a job or anything. or a mortgage or even a lease.

I stayed. I cooked, I took them to the doctor. Seems my dad had never even told Mom's doctor about her mental changes, and I mourned for what she had lost that maybe she wouldn't have if he had just spoken up. I mourned for all the arguments we had had on the phone because I didn't understand what was happening to her. I couldn't understand just why she accepted me, bragged on me to her friends. She had only trashed me before, lied to people about what I did, ran me down at every opportunity. What was different this time? So I picked a time when she seemed to be all there, and I asked her, what was different? Why did she like me all of a sudden? She said, this time you got involved. You invested something of yourself into our lives. That was all she needed to suddenly like me? Look at all the years I wasted. Look at all the time I wasted. My mother was suddenly a sweet, delicate woman. Someone who liked pink dresses, soft fabric, and pearls. I couldn't wrap my mind around it. I asked my dad, what happened to her? How did she get so cold and judgemental if this was who she was inside? He didn't know. They were not introspective people, as a lot of the people who went through the war were not. They tended to deal with concrete things, in absolutes, not in concepts. I had a weird flashback to the 60's when I made my dad love beads to wear with his turtleneck and blazer, and how baffled he was. Ultimately, he wore a medallion, which I guess was okay. My dad was totally a fashionista, and now I get it. His closets are still full of the most stylish clothes from the 40's onward. can't seem to get rid of them. and all the pockets are full of cough drops.

Okay, that was a strange aside. But it's part of what I found when I moved back in here. Dad got better, but he never regained his mental status. It was a urinary tract infection, untreated because he couldn't remember that he was sick and needed to take medicine. I found out by accident, and it took 3 months of antibiotics and other things to heal him, but it was too late for his brain. So sad. My dad was such a special person, he was funny, and he always had a project, and he never finished anything. He was active in the Masonic Lodge, but when he started forgetting things, they started forgetting him. He came to terms with me, he would tell people "this is my daughter, she keeps me straight". I tried to respect his dignity, did not make decisions for him, but just reminded him of things. Like which side of the road to drive on. And to not buy any more gold coins that he didn't even freaking want. It was hard. I missed my husband and my son, and even the dog. But they came eventually. I thought the burden would be easier more distributed. But that did not turn out to be the case at all.  Oh this is hard. This is not what I wanted to do at all. But I think I have to, so bear with me.

I hope to somehow go down the road. I am a person with some issues, some strength, and would like to talk about how I feel about my life. I've been stuck for a while now, treading water in my life. I have a stable living environment, food security, and a family. There also are friends, but I mostly don't talk to them. Or my family. Or anybody, so I thought I'd try talking to myself, on a blog. Not planning on telling anyone I actually know that I'm doing this. Not really sure that I want my real life to intersect with the life inside my head.

A few years ago, I was diagnosed bipolar, with a borderline personality disorder. Put on medicine that mostly didn't really help. I've not been really good at keeping up with my health care, mostly thinking that I know more about it than any doctor could. I think the diagnosis was sketchy, mostly a result of a random event rather than any kind of analysis. There was also a doctor that suggested that I might have Asperger's Syndrome, and I ran directly away from him too. I had a real job that I loved. I felt pretty good about everything. I felt like a real person. Then it all went to hell.

The store I worked in was run by somebody not doing a good job. The hours allotted to the employees were based on the overall sales of the store. I wasn't anybody, really, and my hours got cut. Another store opened in the plaza, my son got a job there, and they offered me more hours, so I jumped. And it just didn't work, the job was a bad fit, they said though nobody could tell me what exactly I had done wrong. And they fired me.  And then I couldn't sleep. And I had lost my driver's license. and all my teeth. and I was stuck at home and somebody brought home a bottle of bourbon.

It was a revelation. I had never been much of a drinker before, but bourbon dulled exactly what needed to be dulled, and I could sleep. I stayed up late playing video games and sipping at some bourbon.  And the time passed. and the road stopped.

I made a hand pieced quilt top for my husband for Christmas. I visited my parents on Christmas eve, and suddenly, suddenly, my life was no longer my own. Something was wrong with my father and I didn't know what. He was 88 years old, the sole caretaker of my 91-year-old mother who had some early stage mental changes, maybe Alzheimer's, maybe just dementia. And without his attention, his memory, his care, both of them had fallen into some really bad habits. They weren't eating or taking medicine or bathing and doing laundry, the house was getting hoarded out and falling into disrepair. I tried reminding them on the phone, I tried enlisting the neighbors, but it became clear that what they needed was me. So I came back, and I stayed. and I'm still here though now they both are gone. Maybe this is all I can tell today. Maybe I will try again tomorrow. This has brought all the horror, all the enormous responsibility and fear back. And now, I need some more bourbon.