When I was a child Christmas was my favorite time of year. I liked the decorations, the snow (when I lived in Kansas and Ohio), the food, almost everything. For the last several years this has not been the case. Now Thanksgiving to Christmas through January is a drag. It is my least favorite time of year. Almost every year, my grandma comes to visit and my dad and brother do very little to help take care of her. They abandon my mom to deal with her alone.
My grandma is not the type to sit still. If she is not worrying about what the rest of the meals for the day will be, she has to find a project to do. She will sweep the floor, even if it was just swept a day or two ago. She has to worry about the napkin holder on the table getting low, even though there are still enough napkins for a few more meals. She cleans the stove after every use. If there are any leftovers in the fridge that could be put in even a marginally smaller container, she has to drag the container out, move the food, and then wash the former container. Some days she insists on cleaning the fridge as well. For my grandma there is no such thing as good enough, everything has to be perfect or it is horrible. She will work herself to death over the smallest of things.
It is so frustrating that my dad and brother who have known my grandma for over 30 years do not understand this about her. At least if they do, they are not doing anything about it. Instead they hide in the furthest part of the house and waste their lives on in front of computers. They run away like little children. While I strongly disagree with my grandma's ideas about cleaning and preparing food, I accept that she is 93 years old and not about to change. I try to help out by anticipating her next moves and beating her to them. If there is stuff on the shelves of the fridge, I will clean it up before she sees it. If the microwave is dirty, I clean it. If the laundry room is dusty, I will clean it. If the sugar is running low by her standards, I will fill it up. If there is food to be made or warmed up, I start doing it my way (using this great invention called the microwave) before she pulls out a pot and warms up everything on the stove (and then cleans the pot and stove).
This is the season of anger for me. I would estimate that of the 30 moments that I get the angriest in an average year, 27 of them happen around Thanksgiving, Christmas, and January. It is a minor miracle I have not yelled at anyone or broken anything (maybe if I did people would understand how destructive their inaction is on me).
I am not in a happy mood. I do not want to decorate the house. I do not want to bake a dozen different types of cookies. I do not want to send people emails. I do not even want to get out of bed in the morning. The things I have to look forward to are smaller than the work, aggravation, and frustration I have to put up with. This is what it has been like for the last few Christmas seasons. All of the other "adults" in the house go missing when they are needed the most.
However, there was a year when my grandma did not visit. Instead, my two cousins and their parents from Sweden came for a visit of over a month. In that time, they stayed in my parents' house (which meant I had to vacate my room and sleep in a closet), visited almost every theme park and tourist sight in Southern California on my dad's dime, sat in their rooms (my room to be exact) between meals (even downloaded some junk to my computer, including a virus), expected us to make all of their meals, did not help with any of the cleanup, ate all the donuts we bought the night before when they get up early (without a thought that other people might want some), and bought untold amounts of M and Ms at Wal-Mart. Since they were here for Christmas, my dad bought them many great gifts, as if paying for their plane tickets and entertaining them for over a month was not enough. They were bad house guests who acted entitled to a lot of things without working or paying for them. Which is exactly the way my dad has trained them to act over the last few trips they have taken to America.
The more I think about everything the angrier I get. This is not a joyous season for me.
The actions of my family at this time of year bring out the worst in me. I do not like the way I start acting because of them. I do not want to be angry and I have to work every hour to be patient.
Disappointment
From the above situation as well as other things I am disappointed. I am disappointed with the choices I have made that have brought my life to its current state. None of them were conscious choices, but inactions and omissions. Sometimes I let bad luck or a genuinely poor situation be an excuse for not trying hard enough. Sometimes I compared myself to the worst situations of people I knew and told myself, at least I am doing better than them. A few times I let myself settle for tiny steps in the right direction instead of taking strong action.
If I had worked harder applying for jobs I might be employed now. Or, if I had worked harder in my classes I would have raised my GPA more and be a full time student by now. If I had surrounded myself with different people they might have motivated me to make something of my life sooner. The ifs of the past are only good if they help me make better choices today.
This is not the life I want. I am sad, disappointed, and fearful I am wasting my life.
I know some of you will say things like "you have made so much progress in other areas of your life," "you are always doing something interesting," or "you have turned your life around a remarkable amount in the last year and a half." All of those things are true. However, it is difficult to remain positive and push forward when I have to deal with the situations I do every day.
Even though you are upset and justifiably mad at your family, at least you are aware of what's going on with you internally. It's better to be furious and aware of the reasons than be in denial about how you feel and make excuses for your family's behavior.
ReplyDeleteI'm not asking this to make light of your situation which is understandably upsetting and bad for your health, just trying to understand a little clearer: what's the worst that could happen if you don't help your grandmother with her need to constantly be cleaning? It sounds like she wants to be cleaning, regardless whether your dad or brother are going to help. It's inconsiderate of your dad and brother to not help her out with the cleaning in their own house, but maybe you don't also have make yourself responsible for doing it for them when your grandma visits.
Again, I don't mean to tell you what to do, and I know how infuriating family stuff can be.
You make a good point that I need to evaluate all of my situations. I need to tell my family what they need to do and not take all the work myself. I need to find a middle ground between telling them nothing and telling them what I really think "You are both failing to live good lives today."
ReplyDeleteThe cleaning can be divided into a few categories.
There are the things my grandma will do no matter what that I should let her do (stove, kitchen floor, toaster).
There were some one time things that needed to be done one or two times a year that I try to do before she notices them(laundry room).
Then there are things that are genuinely dirty that need cleaning. Even when my grandma is not here my dad and brother do not do their share of the housework.
The problem is often when my grandma sees something dirty she will start scolding my mom and/or me. There is a good chance my mom will start to cry because she can't even feed herself without help, let alone scrub every inch of the house. Aside from that, my grandma always lectures me about the cleaning because my dad and brother are hiding in the other room like children. Half of what she says is right, but I can't get her to understand it is the other two able bodied adults in the house who don't clean up after themselves.
I just want to leave.
My parents did not teach my brother to take care of himself, so they can be stuck in the mess they created and keep making him food, protecting him from his bad financial choices, and doing more than they should for him.
With their nurturing/babying attitude it is interesting how my brother and I turned out with such different skill sets. Some of it is treating him differently because of Asperger syndrome and (partly as a result of that) my dad liking me better.
My dad keeps sleeping to hide from our problems of money and does nothing for his health. Small things get him out of breath and he is not taking even small steps to eat better or exercise. He keeps pushing everything down the road, when it will only be worse.
The ending to all of this is my dad wants my grandma to stay with us permanently. It is getting questionable how well she can take care of herself. My response is don't spend 6 plus hours hiding from her in the other room and take a look at what her presence and your inactions really do to mom. If he saw the destruction that has been going on for the last several years he would change his actions.
This is a mess my dad created by his inactions. I have done more than my part to help the family out, but he needs to want to change. I do not want to spend my life cleaning up after their bad choices. I have my own life to live.