Stress

Monday 12/22 6:54PM

Ok, so we found out a few hours ago that my grandparents are coming in tonight rather than tomorrow. Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE my grandparents, but they ALWAYS do this! They say they will be here one day, and then come a day early so that mom is all stressed out trying to make the house clean for them (when it should be clean all the time anyway, but isn’t) and then gets annoyed at me when I try to help. They ALWAYS do this to us! Mom gets all planned to have them later so she feels like she has time to prepare for them, and then they say, “Oh we’ll come in a day early, just because,” and then mom’s like, “Oh crap, let’s clean up NOW!” And so what is my talent? Organizing. I can take a room that looks like a tornado and rearrange it into a neat and tidy office if I so desire. I do it all the time, with everyone! Every house I go into I see as a rearranging party, because I love to make spaces look neat and organized. But mom is the ONLY one who has EVER not liked what I do. My moving stuff around aggravates her, so I can’t do anything to help. She’s the only one who has ever unappreciated my work, but it’s the only thing I’m good at! So no wonder I love college so much. I don’t have to put up with her not being able to put up with me. I can’t stand it when she gets irritated with me, yet here we are, just like it’s always been, me trying to make all her crap look neat and organized and she getting pissed off at me because I try to make her dumb house look presentable and hospitable in a way that I know how. She just has too much STUFF!! That’s the bottom line, and it would be so much better if she would just have the guts in her to get rid of all the junk she doesn’t need, but she holds on to EVERYTHING until every space in the house is buried in piles of junk that she doesn’t even realize are there and it gets dusty and old and passed due and it just drives me crazy! Is it any wonder I only want to come home once a year? Actually, I don’t want to come home. I want to stay in my clean and empty dorm and have them come visit me. I felt disgusted the minute I walked in the house the night I got home. Nothing had changed, except there was more STUFF and more DUST and more DIRT and cats were living in my sister’s bedroom making it dirty, hairy, and stinky and so my sister was living in what had been my room, and there was junk mail all over the kitchen, dog hair in a thin layer (like snow, ironically) over the carpet, and I was just suddenly claustrophobic and wishing I was back in my dorm. I HATE this house, I hate the way my mom lives. I hate her mess. And the second I try to make it more livable, she gets all angry at me for moving her precious JUNK! I mean, I can’t win here! I just want to go back to my room, in my space that I can control and maintain. Don’t get me wrong, I wish I was closer to home so it wasn’t a six hour drive to see mom, but I can’t stand living in the same house with all this dirt, trash, and dogs that my mom insists on keeping. I hate getting her stuff for Christmas because I know she will just keep it for forever and store it somewhere to collect dust. I HATE that! Ugh! I’ve been loving being around Elisa at least. She’s been great, we’ve been getting along so well and having fun, and good conversations. I really like her. But mom, my goodness, she’s seriously lost her mind over these last eight years or so. She’s just…crazy. All this packrat stuff, letting her house go to the dust, not keeping up with mail and papers, buying more junk just because she thinks its pretty and will look good somewhere, I mean, come on! As if the house needed ANYTHING else more getting stuffed in it. It’s too small for the three of us and two dogs (not to mention the three cats that have moved into the garage to make room for my two grandparents coming in soon), there’s no room for a real Christmas tree, we put a small one up on the window seat by the front door. I just, this makes me so sad and depressed to see my mom like this. How did she get like this? Could I have done anything more to keep this from happening? I tried my whole life to help her, to make life easier for her, and I can see that it hasn’t done any good. She still lives in filth and doesn’t care, and isn’t willing to clean up and let go. I just wish I could DO something, but I’m so helpless, and even when I try to help, she gets pissed off at me. No wonder I’m so happy when I’m in college. Seriously. No wonder…