My Sunday prayer
I always figured I shouldn’t have kids because I like my freedom, financial (precarious though it may be) and otherwise, way too much. And lo, God tossed my mother into my house.
I figured I’d have an adventure partner, maid, chef and friend.
While parts of that are true, I also have self-injury issues and a death wish.
I guess this is what marriage must be like. Where the sound of someone’s voice makes you dig your nails so deeply into your most-vulnerable flesh that the sound of blood pulsating in your temples is the only thing that deafens the screaming pain in your mind.
I hate the TV being on constantly. We only have one. I find myself going to sleep on the couch because I’ve tuned out the talking and whatever bullshit show is playing.
The sleep is good for me. I lost the weight I gained last week. I think it’s because I’m more well-rested.
There was a great article in The Atlantic this week about Your Brain on Poverty. Read it.
I am spiritually broke, even if I make a good living. And I think it applies, the “functioning as though you’ve lost 13 IQ points” bit.
A commenter said that’s why people think nothing of having four baby daddies — that you’re going to be broke 10 years from now so who gives a shit and of course I deserve to feel needed/wanted/like I belong now, consequences be damned.
I think I’ve gone the opposite way. I don’t have enough pleasure. Other than food of course, and I’m even depriving myself of that for the most part.
Sure just I bought a gold iPhone and a cute Nine West purse I’ve been eyeing for a long time. But the inner arguments at spending that discretionary cash were excruciating.
Of course, I spent $1,500 to fix up Mom’s car in the last month without a syllable uttered because anytime I suggest that maybe I wasn’t put on this earth to be her keeper she tells me what a martyr I am.
That was money for my December New York trip that I never scheduled. But anyway.
I look at Mom’s health and see how she went downhill at 50. So I have 10 good years left, basically. And being picked at all day by her that I’m a terrible mean horrible nasty person who can’t be nice is killing me. When all I wanted was a nice sushi lunch yesterday but she doesn’t like sushi and she really wanted this burger place 50 miles from here and so I got a chicken sandwich I came to find out cost me a whole day’s worth of Weight Watchers points.
But anyway.
No wonder she couldn’t find a good man and could only hold onto bad ones. If this is marriage, fucking kill me. Seriously.
I don’t mean that she doesn’t have redeeming qualities. She really does. And she’s greater than a kid because I couldn’t hold my job with a kid.
But I kind of like the idea that a kid, you can throw into a carseat and just GO. Go wherever you want. Stick him next to the sushi buffet and let me eat a healthy meal. Strap her into the backseat and go to the Keys for the weekend without worrying about finding a hotel with no steps and that’s private because your traveling companion is agoraphobic and can’t be seen.
But damn, stick her in a dollar store or Michael’s craft store or Wal-Mart and even though my precious, rare free time and money is fucking wasted for hours, she’s as happy as can be.
I’ve booked a hotel over Thanksgiving elsewhere in the state and she’s so excited. And she thinks we’re all best friends and shit and can’t stop asking me questions about what the trip will entail. It will entail me driving and spending money and apparently taking the cat since she won’t let the cat be alone for more than an hour.
You know what the trip will also entail? ADVIL. I’ve planned which CVS location I will stop by before I get on the turnpike. Isn’t that enough?
God, I ask and thank You for not losing my mind when I know You can make things so much worse. I thank You for helping me reclaim those needed 13 IQ points, and to ensure I don’t say anything else stupid during the recovery process because she has no problem telling me how miserable I am to be with and HOW DARE I even think she has ANYTHING to do with it.
Now to go find somewhere to feed her that she likes, my own weight loss efforts likely be damned …