Tag: mom

Lookin’ Good!

Daily writing prompt
Describe a random encounter with a stranger that stuck out positively to you.
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I saved this prompt because it prompted (heh, heh, heh) me to think of something I’ve not forgotten. Back when Mom first started chemo, she started losing her hair. She has always had short hair since I’ve been around, although it was to her waist when she was in high school, which is wild to me. She told me she used to straighten it with a clothing iron; equally wild. Also, she sucked at styling hair, which I inherited from her, sadly. She would get perms, then curl her permed hair, like, the next day. Anyway, my point is it never looked good to me, but it was hers.

Obviously, chemo is known for one of its many side effects being hair loss. It is almost synonomous with it, but not all chemo drugs carry this common side effect, and I know a lot of the oral chemo drugs do not. The chemo my dad was on did not make him lose his hair, but he apparently lost a lot of weight (I didn’t get to see him). Mom was able to avoid being super nauseous on a regimen of Zofran or Phenergan.

Mom was losing hair in the shower, so she decided to go to the mall and have her head shaved, then go to Claire’s and get some scarves and turbans. She gets her head shaved, and I am the one standing in the back crying. She does so well keeping it together but she does not wish to look in the mirror when the stylist is done. We cover her head with something before leaving the salon, which I forget what it was, and we make our way to Claire’s.

At Claire’s we find a lot of cute scarves and turbans and she tries them out, all the while facing away from the little mirrors. Using scarves as head wraps was new to us, but Mom had watched some videos on YT of how to do it and there was more than one way to fix them. She chooses a number of each, and when she goes to pay for them, the clerk gives her a 50% discount, which I thought was super cool and so sweet. We continue on to Target.

Mom’s in a wheelchair, which we are new to navigating in public but she was in some pain and pretty tired and Adam and I fought with her about using one or we would not be shopping. I could always gauge how she felt on a given day by how much of a fight she gave us. This was a low fight day. While we maneuver her out of the walkway so she could try some hats and more scarves out, Mom’s kind of hunched down trying to be less noticeable and she keeps touching the scarf on her head nervously. It was a big day full of all sorts of emotions felt by all three of us.

So, we’re pulled off to the side on the carpeted area near the head gear and people are walking by us, and a man sees Mom and says, “Lookin’ good!” and gives her a wave or thumbs-up, which just warmed my heart so much! Mom gives him a smile and thanks him and she seems to relax a little bit.

As time went on, she became more comfortable going bare-headed, mostly because wigs, scarves, and turbans made her too hot and she would get sweaty, which she hated. The wigs never looked right on her because they were styled well and cute. Her hair grew in steel gray, which was so weird because she had only countable gray hairs before losing it, and Grandma had very few as well and she died in her 70s. Mom’s hair matched her eyes, which no one ever realized that she had gray eyes because of her mess of curled and sprayed hair. My brother told her how pretty her eyes were and how she looked much better “without that ugly mop of hair.” 🤣🤣 I think she was most beautiful with her new baby hair.

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this is me trying

I just don’t know what to do anymore. I have talked, hinted, blogged, poeted, texted, reacted, proacted, and nothing has changed. Why do men continue to think that it is a woman’s job to assume a motherly role? There are not strict gender roles any longer for majority thinkers.

I can take the trash out, do the litter box, get myself up for appointments, and get things done, whether I outsource those jobs or do them myself. I don’t need a man, I need a partner (unless I want to be single, then I need myself, the cats, and Ollie Bear).

Don’t want to do the “dirty work”? Choose the more desirable tasks without being asked or told and those are what you get. If you unload the dishwasher and consider that your part, guess what the other person is doing? Loading the dirty dishes into the dishwasher. My brother and I had that chore after school and he would run home (he pushed me down a hill a couple of times to get home before me) so he could unload the dishes and I would have to touch the dirty, gross ones. If the dishwasher was empty and just needed loaded, he made sure I got home before he did. Siblings are great, huh 😂😂? But leave the decision-making to someone else and at their discretion, you’re on 💩 duty every time; quite literally with a puppy and blind cat. That’s the way the cookie crumbles.

My guts are spilling out (literally) and I’m still doing more than my part. Taylor dropped a lyric from the new album and it sums it up well, as she tends to do: Even statues crumble if they’re made to wait. I have seen a lot of instances where men and women think their partners will stay around because their parents stayed together regardless of how they were treated. I am not like that. My mom became a strong woman and taught me there is a limit and I can certainly stand my ground and say enough is enough (and I will).

I have changed everything for the loml in the last ten years. I went from having a caretaker my entire life, briefly having two in Mom and Adam for three years, to running an entire household by myself, having an independent, and trying to figure out everything. Mom didn’t know she was going to die and I would be flying solo. I think she thought if she didn’t make plans and preparations, she possibly could not die, which I totally get. She taught me many things but not everything (do parents ever get the opportunity to teach their children everything they want to before they die?).

I mean, I paid Mom’s house off with her life insurance by mailing a very large personal check via the post office… Obviously, that was incredibly stupid but I did not know that was a no-no because I knew about traveler’s checks but not certified checks or other secure ways to make transactions, like money orders, in 2014. I just knew I needed to get it done so I wouldn’t have to worry about the mortgage. The house bank called and asked if I was attempting to pay the house off and I think I started crying and told them what was going on. They were very helpful and took care of it for me.

All this is on top of living with someone who was too emotionally abused and stunted for me to be able to be myself. I never had to pretend or suppress with Mom when I got older because she was used to me and would back off and let me regulate on my own. Now, when I’m overwhelmed and need to decompress, I am asked “what’s wrong?” constantly until I answer or he marches off in a huff.

Even though we have a nephew on the spectrum, I am not supposed to behave or react out of neurotypical character. I have always had such expectations placed on me when other family wasn’t held to the same. I was supposed to be the good girl, the polite one, never speak up, never confront, let things go, etc. I cannot become irrationally frustrated or physical with things or have my entire mood ruined because one small thing was not as I expected or wanted it. That results in me containing everything, and my mental and physical health deteriorates until I can barely function and I break instead of merely snapping.

I really don’t ask for much, seriously. I want a relatively clean home free of ants or ladybugs (which means food and drink and trash not left all over the house), a mowed and trimmed lawn, and things repaired around the house. We’ve had a roof leak in the bathroom forever that should have been repaired a long time ago. But instead of getting it done, he’s going to wait until the ceiling caves in and then try to comfort me when I lose my 💩 because I don’t have the money to fix the roof or the ceiling.

When I just stop to see how bad he lets things get, it’s pointed out to me as soon as I fuss at him (well, you left this out and that there; you do this and that; you act this way; everything is a comparison with no responsibility taken, ever).

Of course, I’m the dramatic and unreasonable one for wanting it fixed yesterday, or wanting anything done, really. I already have to figure out how to replace the floors and subfloors in the kitchen, living room, and Mom’s room on my own because of the cats. I didn’t grow up in garbage and I don’t like being forced to live in it just because someone else did and has zero self-respect. Love and support are not the only things one needs.

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Sorry for all the April Showers

Huh. WP PC app is back to normal, so I don’t know what that was all about.

It’s April again, and I thought things would get easier but that isn’t the case. April 10, National Siblings Day, marked five years since my brother died. He didn’t even make it to 40. We weren’t physically close as he lived in a different state and neither of us liked using the phone, but I adored him and loved when he came to visit or I went to his house. After Mom died, I got the best sleep and rest when I stayed with him and his family for a weekend.

April 19th will make 10 years since Mom died. That is also the date of Taylor Swift’s new album, so I will have something to smile about at least. Mom and I were/are longtime fans since Tim McGraw. I cannot believe it has been a decade that she has been gone. I wish there was an AI program that could create her voice. All I have for that is an answering machine outgoing message that I captured on my phone after she died. No videos. No recordings.

I don’t sound like her, so I can’t even record myself and pretend it’s her. I sound more like my dad, unfortunately. My birthday is at the end of the month, 10 days after Mom died. I don’t celebrate it. Depression and trauma covers an entire month for me! I will be 29 again this year, per usual. Just like Phineas is 11 months old every year. He is my baby and always will be.

I was banned from Reddit again but only for 7 days this time. I made a comment that I don’t like the F-word and wish people would stop using it and someone called me a baby, so I tagged Adam in it. Adam made a comment to this guy, so the loser got Adam banned from the sub and when I participated in another post in the same sub, I was banned for “ban evasion” because the idiots at Reddit cannot comprehend that more than one person in a household can have a Reddit account. I really, really hate Reddit with a passion but I have no other social outlet. X is a cesspool as well, and Facebook isn’t really that active since they screwed up the feed and don’t show recent posts first. I don’t get Tumblr, although I do have an account I reactivated yesterday.

I appealed Reddit’s decision, again, and was turned down, again. It makes my blood boil, but I am trying to keep my mouth shut. Reddit workers and moderators are such fascists with too much time on their hands. They have subreddits with any type of porn (made up of Reddit users) one can imagine, subs for photos of upskirt shots (not consenual), and some of the most disgusting fetish subs, but I get banned because some pissant can dish it out but not take it when my husband defends me. It has not been a good month 😒.

I guess this month makes a year since I started this site/blog. Yay, me! Why do we use the word “yay” when the correct spelling is “yea”? I do it because people think I just made a typo while trying to say “yeah.” Why do people just take it upon themselves to change the way things are spelled and then claim that is what is correct? Like “could of, should of, would of.” Or, one of the worst phrases, “I could care less.” You’re not stating you really don’t care by saying you could actually care less than you do. Come on, people. If you could not tell, I am very cranky at the moment. It seems like it was New Years just last week.

In my next post, I will talk about how utterly insufferable Adam is because of Neville!! If only I had listened to myself. (Do I ever??) Also, we will be losing one of our babies very soon.

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