I’ve been overwhelmed, stressed, depressed, resentful, and just generally icky lately. Writing is usually my compass during the challenging spurts in my life, but lately every time I open a blank page I feel myself fighting my way through every line, like trying to stay awake when you’re watching a movie your significant other loves and you want nothing more than to doze off and quell the anxiety-inducing lack of interest waltzing on your nerves.
I should preface this rant by saying I would do anything for my mother, and there’s nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice to take care of her in any circumstance, because I know she has and would do the same for me unconditionally… but that doesn’t mean being her interim caretaker while she recovers from her injury and subsequent surgery is easy by any means.
Through this process, I’ve come to understand that caring for a parent is a difficult role reversal. Even though every parent wants their child(ren) to become self-sufficient, I believe there’s a certain sense of pride that comes of being an adult that’s capable not only of keeping yourself alive, but another human being as well. As a parent, when the one you’ve cared for his or her entire life suddenly has to care for you, it can be embarrassing and uncomfortable. It’s strange trusting someone to take care of you who, up until that point, has been in your care. I’ve found that once the initial hesitance has passed, parents seek other ways to “be the parent” in circumstances when they’re relying on their child.
In my case, my mom is “being the parent” by micro-managing every facet of the tasks I’m completing while she’s incapacitated. Most of the time I can grin and bear my way through it, but the one aspect of her bossiness that is slowly ruining every weekend is the adherence to her bizarre, time-wasting grocery shopping rituals.
My mom is the kind of person who diligently reads every grocery store ad that comes in the mail and religiously clips coupons (for amounts that range from 50 cents to $1 off). She makes a shopping list with the items we need, complete with the store that has the best price.
I know it may seem like a foolproof money-saving method, but allow me to let you in on a little secret: THESE STORES ARE NOWHERE NEAR EACH OTHER/OUR HOME. We are NOT saving 50 cents a pound on nectarines when I have to drive 11 miles just to get to the grocery store that had them on the front page of its sales paper!
Look, I’m all about saving money, and I’m pro-coupon (especially when people pronounce it coupon and not cue-pon), but driving to and fro across the suburbs just to save a couple bucks off a pound of deli meat? It’s a fallacy! I’ve voiced these concerns to my mom, namely that the money saved is actually negligible when you factor in gas prices, and I’ve received in return passive aggressive remarks like these:
“You like living in this house, don’t you? You have to save money where you can!”
“Well, you’re just going to do whatever you want anyway.”
“If you’re not careful with your money, you won’t have nice things.”
SHE THREATENED MY POTENTIAL NICE THINGS!
I love this woman dearly, but this is fucking poppycock—the most devastating form of poppycock there is. Yet, because she used the magical mom guilt mind meld, every weekend you’ll find me running to Walgreen’s to get 2% milk for $2.99, cruising out to Meijer for Sara Lee turkey, and looping around to stop at Jewel to snatch up some bags of cherries for $1.99 per pound. I know I could easily lie (and I’ve started doing exactly that this past weekend), but if having some illusion of control over where our groceries come from makes her happy, I want to do her bidding her way.
Unfortunately, the grocery shopping is never completely done, either. Last weekend I bought two gallons of milk for the week. For two people. Granted, we use milk fairly often for cereal and tea, but I’d rather run out to get milk one weeknight than spend any more time than necessary with the crazed elderly people navigating their Cadillac Deville in the grocery store parking lot on Sunday afternoon.
My unsatisfactory milk rationing verdict was handed down to me just as I had unloaded all the groceries, and quietly celebrated being done with the “15 items or less” line for the week:
“Katie? How much milk do we have?”
“Better get another gallon. And would you go back to Meijer and get some more of those mini crackers?”
$@&*(%&*!(&%*!(&%(@*&%@!#(!*&%*!
Oh, the mini crackers. Don’t get me started on the reconnaissance mission I endured just to find my mom mini saltine crackers. We had these mini crackers that my mom bought when I was sick a couple years ago, and for a while, they were the only foodstuffs in the house my mom could keep down. Well, eventually we ran out of the stale mini crackers, and when I tried to replace them, I couldn’t find the exact same box at the store. Nevertheless, I was proud of myself for substituting for a box of the same exact brand of crackers, only these were a little larger and round instead of small and square, and they were dusted with sea salt:
Well, these salty, round abortions dusted with Poseidon’s salt were not to my dear mom’s liking, so I continued the search in both Jewel and Wal-Mart, but I still came home empty-handed. I thought after putting forth that effort she would make do with the round ones, but then one day when we were talking about something completely unrelated to crackers,
“Oh, that reminds me, Auntie said she’s seen those crackers in Walt’s.”
SHE MENTIONED THESE CRACKERS TO MY AUNT!? WHY IS MY AUNT GETTING INVOLVED!? WHAT KIND OF BISCUIT NETWORK IS THIS????
So I got the correct damn crackers at Walt’s, and even though she had a full box, my mom insisted that I go back for another one.
Adding to the burden of my tasks is the unfortunate reality that somehow, right under my nose, my mom turned our dog Reagan into a furry diva. Reagan must be fed as close to 4 a.m. and 4 p.m. as possible. Reagan must go outside for her last time after 9:15 p.m. (anything else is too early, and she might have to pee in the night!). Reagan must be fed a green bean every time I open the refrigerator door. THIS IS NOT NORMAL. I’ve been helping to take care of the dog for six years now, and I had no idea all this green bean business was going on.
So, to accommodate Reagan’s predetermined agenda, after work I’ve been hurrying home and feeding the dog (and my mom), playing with the dog, going over to my boyfriend’s to spend a little time with him, and then coming back home again to let her highness the hound outside to piddle at an hour that will accommodate her tiny bladder. If my mom is awake whenever I let the dog out, she’ll call out,
“Did she go?”
And every time I’ll pleasantly answer her with a “Yes, she did!” But I’d love instead to go all Dr. Jekyll and scream,
“No! I just thought I’d come back inside without taking care of her, because that seems like something a responsible pet owner would do. OF COURSE SHE WENT!!!!!! AND I FELT THE WARMNESS OF HER FECAL MATTER THROUGH THE THIN LAYER OF A PLASTIC BAG. DO YOU MISS SHARING IN THAT EXPERIENCE WITH ME?! WELL SHE’S MINE NOW! ALLLLL MINE UNTIL YOU CAN HELP TAKE CARE OF HER AGAIN! JUST WATCH ME DEPRIVE HER OF HER PRECIOUS GREEN BEANS!!!!!!! MUHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!!!”
I’ve also been informed that I’m not brushing Reagan enough, and that I need to play with her more. My mom has also suggested that my dog is an orphan, and told my dog, in front of me, that soon she’ll be able to take care of her again. …Which is exactly what anyone would like to hear when they’re trying their hardest to do everything right.
Beyond my diva dog, let’s talk about the kind outlook you should have when you’re healing. You should try and be as optimistic as possible about your recovery, right? Well, my mom is managing as best she knows how, but she’s not exactly the eternal sunshine part of The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind even pre-injury. I’m doing my best to keep her spirits up, but constantly being on call to point out that the glass is half full is exhausting.
Unrelated to everything going on with my mom, I’m doing some new things at work and taking on more responsibility, and while I’m really excited about it and grateful to do some different things, the extra stress of all that is really coming at the worst time. Though, I’d never thought I’d say this, I’ve actually started to prefer and look forward to being at work more than being at home. The time I spend commuting and working is a glorious spell where I have an obligation that supersedes everything else I’m doing at home. I’m safe there. There’s still plenty to do, but no mini crackers to locate, and for eight hours, it’s become a hallowed reprieve from housework and errands.
In no particular order, here are a few other things that are currently raising my blood pressure: my mom’s job—whose requests for medical documents and inquiries into her condition and return date are getting closer and closer to harassment, the sadness in my mom’s eyes every time I leave the house for any reason because she can’t go outside anywhere without help, the fact that my mom seems to have a new ache or pain every day, the fact that my mom is worried she might have an acid reflux and/or an ulcer, feeling like an asshole girlfriend because any time I spend with my boyfriend is abbreviated and/or unpleasant because I’m so crabby all the time, the fact that I’ve been eating junk food/dining out as familiar coping mechanism even though I know it doesn’t help anything, feeling like everyone but me is having a kickass summer (HAKAS yearbook autograph style), feeling like no matter what I do I’m letting someone down, and perhaps most significantly, feeling like a selfish person for feeling this way about any of this.
The worst part is that there’s no one to blame, and there’s really very little I can do to help my mother. I can take her to her doctor’s appointments, make her some tea, and fix her dinner, but I can’t help her get more sleep. I can’t stop the strange aches and pains from coming. I can’t help her be more comfortable or convince her to worry less about what’s going on at her work. I can’t pacify the fear she has that her foot will never be the same no matter how badly I wish I could. For a 59-year-old person, even for a personal of any age, my mom is very active and makes exercise a priority, and I know how difficult it is for her to be sidelined on the couch elevating a healing heel. I hate that my mom is afraid of the stairs that lead to our basement now. I hate that the most my mom can do right now is scoot around the house, not bearing weight on her injured heel, while life goes on despite her injury. But aside from keeping her comfortable and taking care of things around the house, there’s little else I can do and that powerlessness makes everything that much more difficult.
If you’ve managed to suffer this far through this rant, I’ll let you in on another piece of my life that’s been weighing on my mind: I’ve been a shitty blogger/writer. I know you guys understand, but please know that it doesn’t escape my notice. I want to hang out with you guys here and respond to all of your comments in a timely fashion, but I’m taking every spare moment I can to breathe right and reassure myself that I’m doing the very best that I can. I’ll be back at it eventually.
I guess the moral of the story is this: take care of your parents, even if they drive you crazy for a specific box of crackers. If someone is helping you, you can never show too much gratitude—it makes all the difference. Finally, if you’re still driving to every grocery store in 15-mile radius to use some coupons, please reconsider your money-saving tactics.
PS: Despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary, I’m going to be just fine. I just need to do some yoga, “center myself,” and maybe get a massage (or a less charming clone with bad hair).
Have you ever had to take care of your parents (or have your kids ever had to take care of you)? Do you go to obscure grocery stores just for a sale price? Am I bad a dog owner because I think my dog could eat a little later if I want to get more sleep?
