|
Some brief background: I currently live with my dad. I have been living with him for three years. He and my mother separated about five or six years before that, for a total of eight or nine years. Dad and I currently live about 45 miles away from my mother. That's ending in a few weeks.
Now, here's the thing. I get the sense that Dad is not doing this entirely, or even mostly, out of old feelings rekindled, in which case I might be able to tolerate it. I suspect that a lot of this decision, at least on Dad's end, is being done because of money.
Since they split up, Dad has been stuck shelling out something between $1500-2000 a month to my mom in unofficial (which means he has no recourse) alimony. More, in some instances. She was able to coax enough extra money out of him to help her make the down payment on a townhouse in North Carolina. She never bothered to hold down a steady job until this past year and a half.
So Dad's been stuck with having to pay her, pay his rent in various apartments, and now, in the last three years, pay for the increased expenses that come with having a teenager living with him on top of everything else. I think that he's getting tired of seeing his money go down the drain when he could move back in with my mother and save himself the payments and the rent.
Also, he's been alone for a long time now. He's never had a girlfriend since he and my mom split up. I think he's getting desperately lonely for someone who loves him non-platonically.
Mind you, I'm a cold-blooded son-of-a-bitch, whose ability to judge others' emotions is roughly equal to that of, say...a shark. A dead shark. So my assessment may be lacking, but I don't think it is.
The whole bit above might be tolerable, except that I CAN'T STAND MY MOTHER. Simply being around her Here's the major reasons why:
She's paranoid to the point that it borders on insanity. There has been one, count it, one time in all my 18.75 years of having to deal with her crap that the paranoia has been valid. Every other time, it was her being a: a nutcase, b: over-protective, c: both.
She never shuts up. Ever. Not for more than five minutes when she's around someone. Remember the day Billyskank asked us to remind him to buy bread? Now imagine that in real life. Even when she's quiet for a few minutes, she ostentatiously paces.
She's damned stupid, in a lot of ways. A few examples: She's never managed to master the concept of the "closed captioning" button on the remote, despite me showing her god-knows-how-many times. She spent something like twice the value of her Volvo station wagon on repairs for it, when it would have made more sense to - and half those problems could have been avoided or nipped in the bud with minimum expenditure if she'd bothered to learn car maintenance 101. Despite being Ms. Green Environment wannabe, she voted 100% Republican in 2000, 2002, and 2004 (one of those votes being for Katherine FUCKING Harris as a U.S. Rep).
She's a pack rat. A lot of that money that Dad shelled out? It went to antiques which were never resold, or an endless fucking array of yard plants, or stuff we didn't have room for as it was...hell, you get the point.
She's a miser and lazy on anything not either related to her interests or vital. She'll cough up plenty of money, time, and finicky detail for those/b], but God forbid she should spend anything, money or time, on anything else. She wouldn't so much as fucking replace a burnt-out kitchen light, not while the other one was still flickering.
She snoops. You leave anything personal lying around, it's getting looked at. I don't even trust her alone with my laptop.
Endless lecturing and carping, even more than normal for a mother. Leave the TV on? You'll hear about it. Leave the TV plugged in? You'll hear about it. Eat something she doesn't think you should? You'll hear about it. Don't scrub the shower wall tiles free of water after you shower? You'll hear about it. Also, makes insulting comments about my weight every so often. (I'm overweight, but not morbidly obese or anything like that.)
She gets kooky ideas into her head and won't get them out. The thing above about leaving the TV plugged in? She has some bullshit belief about "carbon loading" from the TV spewing out tons of carbon, even when it's off, so long as it's plugged in. I had to get my fucking doctor to tell her it was okay to eat tuna more than once every six months (The twit was panicking over "mercury poisoning.) She still buys into half the Republican Kool-Aid, for God's sake.
Over-emotional. So much as raise your voice one octave when she does something exceptionally foolish, or won't stop bothering you despite repeated polite requests to be quiet? She'll start going "Why are you being so hateful?"
***
Here ends the list of her flaws, because I have to go to bed. May I note that she is not entirely without redeeming features. She is possessed of unconditional love, she's not physically abusive, she's tolerably good with video editing software, and she makes excellent brownies.
Additionally, Dad and I would be stuck moving into her house, which is infested with massive roaches, covered in mold, cat piss, and other sinus-choking smells which seep into clothing, and in a general state of disrepair.
Goddammit, I like the little condo Dad rents out here on the bay. It's peaceful. It's quiet. Dad and I don't talk much because we don't need to. You can walk out the back door and hop in the bay for a peaceful swim. Something you can't do in the nasty, polluted canal back of my mom's house, by the way.
I like this peaceful, quiet, cozy life Dad and I have. But it's going to come crashing down, and there's nothing I can do to stop it. God help me, I don't even get a break to try and take the news in (they just informed me that it was a confirmed decision today), or figure out possible solutions. I just got back from the end of my college semester tonight, and this morning, I'm being dragged off to her place to help move furniture for the next day and a half/two days.
If you've bothered to read to the end of this rant, do you have any suggestions?
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
