May 6, 2020
Today, my questions are as follows:
How do you tell someone you love that you have to go away?
How do you tell someone you love that you are choosing yourself, instead of them?
How do you break the news, to her and to others, that you have cracked?
It seems like things have gotten better, though! I think you could stick it out longer!
How do you look those people in the eye and say “Sure, maybe I could. But I’m not going to.”?
Is it heartless? Is it wrong?
Will I regret this in a month? in six months? in 10 years?
How do you explain to someone, or maybe even to yourself, that you’re being taken advantage of?
How do you respond to your grandmother’s “What am I going to do without you?” questions in the middle of the night?
What is the right thing to do?
When is the right time to do it?
What if I’m wrong?
My answers to some of these questions:
- It’s okay to be wrong. You will be wrong in your life a million times. You’ve been wrong before, you’ll be wrong again. Life goes on.
- How do you tell her? You tell her the way you wish you would be told.
- How do you know when is the right time? Your gut kicks you and starts keeping you up at night, asking why you haven’t done a damn thing for yourself besides drink some whiskey and log on to this new diary website.
- When she guilts you, when she plays on that guilt that she knows you feel : Maybe that’s how you know that it’s time. Maybe that’s when you know it’s okay to start stepping away.
I keep fighting with myself in my head and it’s exhausting me so much to the point I can’t sleep. I keep wishing, fingers crossed, that the days will just magically get better and we will finally be able to have the space to talk about her history, to talk about our family, to talk about all of these things in my life that I’ve wanted to share with my mother (her daughter) but haven’t been afforded the opportunity. I have cried to her countless times about the lack of a relationship with my mother. I have told her upfront that part of my desire to be here, initially, was the thought that maybe, perhaps, this would be the opportunity to learn a bit about my heritage. To learn about the country she came from that she doesn’t dare speak of, the family that still lives there that writes her letters that she throws away without opening. There’s so many questions I have, so many questions I have dreamed of having answered. And anyone on the outside of this would look at the situation and tell me that now is the perfect time to ask them, now is the perfect time to form that new relationship. But, oh, if only they could be a fly on the wall.
If only they could see the way she sits, most days, in the same spot, with her head hung so low I wonder if her neck is starting to stretch. If only they could hear her grunting and moaning and panting and crying as she stands, as she walks, as she sits, as she eats. How do you open up a dialogue amidst that? How do you explain that “hey I know you’re in pain or whatever, but I’m really tired of hearing about it.” How do you empathize, make her feel like her pain and her problems and her grief is heard, but still try to attempt to teach her a different, possibly better way, of expressing that? Is there a better way? Am I just being an insensitive dick because my life is not living up to the frankly unrealistic expectations I created. What else is new.
Why does it feel like I cause issues with everyone I’m close to? Is it right to be genuinely scared to live closely with anyone – between this and the partner I lived with before, I’ve never felt more that I’m doing ~everything~ wrong. When even, despite that feeling, I still know I am doing the best I can. And i was doing the best I could with my boyfriend before, but it still wasn’t enough, wasn’t right. I recognize now that my “best” in that situation was still filled to the brim with toxic, shitty behaviors. I recognize that the “best” I am doing now is still set on my own expectations, that I haven’t adjusted 100% to “this is just what life will be” because I dread accepting that idea.
What does it feel like to be proud, and feel good and confident and okay with yourself, for just doing your best? What does it feel like to not constantly compare to the unreachable, the impossible, the dreamt about and desired? How do I learn not to put myself up to that?
I have tentative plans to move in with a friend, to get myself out of this situation. The questions remain among the family (but not including the patient herself) about what to do with her when that time comes. My work is opening back up tomorrow. A family member flew in for the occassion but that won’t happen every week. I feel like I have to choose between the two, and though my job is by no means great, I desperately and immediately want to choose work over being here, doing nothing. I need to do something. “I need to feel like a person.” — it’s what I keep saying but I don’t know what that means. Why can’t “a person” be one who takes care of their grandmother, selflessly, who cooks and cleans and talks and organizes, but also somehow has the energy left over for themselves?
What will it take for me to wake the fuck up and realize, truly and completely, that I am not a superhero. The weight of the world does not ride on my shoulders, I only think it does. I am finite, in the most beautiful and terrible of ways. And it destroys me to know this.
When will I feel better?
People say “let go” but it can be hard to do. You’ve got a death grip on all the things you want to control the outcome of. Some things you’ll need to let go of. Some things are a “cross that bridge when you get there” sort of thing.
Is it heartless? No.
Is it wrong? No.
Will I regret this in a month? in six months? in 10 years? Maybe.
How do you explain to someone, or maybe even to yourself, that you’re being taken advantage of? You don’t. You discuss it in a place like this because taking it to those who can’t be responsible for it will only worsen the whole ordeal for all.
How do you respond to your grandmother’s “What am I going to do without you?” questions in the middle of the night? Just smile for all the endless time you’ve had each other and know that someone else is going to be stepping in, soon.
What is the right thing to do? You already know. It’s time for you to take care of yourself.
When is the right time to do it? You’re already working on it. It’s a current event.
What if I’m wrong? You aren’t.
@elcreature It just feels so much more nuanced than “I am doing this because I need to do it for me” when it comes to actually putting it in practice.
I never reread my stuff so unsure if this is clear but my grandmother is not only sick with cancer, but her husband of 53 years died at the end of February, somewhat unexpectedly. So I try to put myself in the shoes of: if I was fucking depressed after my lousy breakup after a few years, I can’t even begin to imagine how sad/depressed/not okay she must be, simply for the fact of losing such a large part of her. Nevermind the cancer. For a normal person, wanting to die less than 3 months after losing someone who was everything to you, is pretty fucking normal. At least it sounds like it would be, right? I could see myself being that fucking sad and not okay, not wanting to live. So is it fucked up of me to, in one hand, recognize all of this terribleness around her and recognize that I do desperately want to see her better, see her smiling, see her okay again. But in the other hand, I also desperately want to have my own space, my own life, my own sleep patterns, my own habits. I want a separation of church and state but any change from the current will still be drastic.
You’re right in that I do know what I need to do. I just get so stuck on that “will I regret it” question. If I’m thinking that I might regret it in the future, and I’m thinking that already, is that a sign that I shouldn’t do it? I understand how much I’m overanalyzing this. But that doesn’t make me stop.
@kale you’re extremely invested, and so it’s understandable that you’re laboring through it as much as you are.
You’re wonderfully loving and considerate. Yes, she’s experiencing multiple major life events simultaneously and you’re aware that you’re contemplating delivering yet another big one.
You’re making a decision for at least two people. It is certainly a very serious situation.
I don’t know if you noticed but you are also groaning. Who is taking care of you?
You’re here because you’re seeking and needing. You’re definitely clear about what’s happening and what matters to you.
Maybe you need a middle step before you feel confident enough to go all the way.
Inevitably, she will also pass away. She knew from the time she married her love that they both would face and endure loss. She wasn’t ill-prepared in losing him. She’s probably not ill-prepared to accept her own eventual leaving.
You leaving is not a death sentence for either of you. Although, to be honest, you never know… it actually could be the undoing of the final silver cord that keeps her here. Maybe if you left she would soon enough thereafter be able to pass.
She’s going to eventually. You can’t stop that from ever happening at all.
Are you prepared for when she’s leaving? Are you in conflict about wanting to be there for her when it happens?
@elcreature In a way, I think my “middle step” could be going back to work, even though a part of me really does not want to go back because of the virus. but also because she has said flat out (behind my back but within my earshot) that she does not want me to go back to work. Even if there wasn’t a virus.
And knowing that just makes me feel so … mad. I don’t know why. i just feel angry. I could write pages about the anger I feel all the fucking time, anger that certainly did not develop because of this situation, but anger that probably wouldn’t have been so loud in my head before.
So maybe the middle step is work. That means someone else comes in. In the past when I was working, the someone else was my mom. But now I suppose she, too, is putting her foot down that she cannot offer an infinite amount of love and care to her sick mother and also to her entire family she has at home. I get that.
It just becomes difficult when I think about what the “other” thing is that I’m going to be doing when not here, if I were not living here. When I am not working. And the thing is, I don’t even know what I would be doing. I have ideas, I have goals for what I’d do, but truthfully, I know I would just get that time to myself, the time I’ve been begging and pleading for for so long, and I wouldn’t feel overwhelmingly happy with it. I beg and insist on things all the time, then get them and realize I might not even want it anymore.
But I guess that is just an example of what you said. It’s growing up. Changing. Uncovering new parts, new pieces. I love myself, I recognize what I am doing in being here is selfless, and has been an overall positive thing since I first got here, despite the bad days. But that’s what makes it even harder. Maybe I should just be selfless a little bit longer.
Am I prepared for when she’s leaving? (I just drafted a post that has something very similar to this question in there so odd for u to ask). Well, I can’t stop it from happening. But if I am the silver line, the one thing keeping her holding on, and I dip out, and then she dies. Am I responsible? I instantly want to tell myself no, I’m not, that I did the best I can. But how do you know what you’re best is if you’ve never done it?
She’s going to go eventually. I can’t stop that from ever happening at all.
@kale yeah, of course it made you angry. Not wanting you to go back to work is a direct opposition to your own needs and rights to be an autonomous individual. It probably felt violating.
“I beg and insist on things all the time, then get them and realize I might not even want it anymore.”
Haha. I know what you mean. Sometimes getting what you need or want after suffering for it is some sort of heaven. Other times, it becomes something disgusting or repugnant. Or at least diminished after such aggravation or whatever.
So, you’re pleading with yourself and trying to talk yourself into staying.
Thinking back, in other instances when your inner dialogue has talked you into something… How did it go? Were you left with regret or did you feel okay with the outcome?
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