But now that my mom is gone, I am learning more and more about how things were, that I was too young and too blind to see. Now that I am older, I see things. I have heard things. And I look back on things I did see and now understand. For instance: My mother was the one that held the steady job. She was the one that stayed in the same job all those years and paid the bills while Dad played around, jumping from job to job, trying to decide what he wanted to do. Mom was the one that did all the cleaning, all the grocery shopping, all the mowing of the yard, even Grandma's yard she mowed (but she liked it, like I do too). Dad did the hunting, fishing, laying around having mom wait on him hand and foot.
Now granted, he was sick for a while, but in the end, so was she, far worse than he was, and she still kept working until it was just impossible, and even then, she was sitting in the hospital bed, calling work checking in to see if everything was ok. Its sad to think back on it now and realize all that she sacrificed for everyone else. I remember she'd hardly ever buy herself new clothes, she just wore the same few outfits and dresses over and over. I wish now that I could have (would have, should have) done more for her. But we don't think about things like that till tragedy happens. Who would have thought at 24 I would lose my mom?
Then we have Dad. Good ole dad, who lives next door to his own mother, yet will not help her with anything that needs to be done. He won't mow her yard, haul off her garbage. Heck, he only takes her her mail once a week, and that's only because she gets the local newspaper in the mail, and it takes up too much room in their shared mailbox! Yet, when he needs something, he doesn't hesitate to call. Many times I've needed help with something, major or minor, and he's too busy. But he wants me to drop everything for him. His priorities lie in the wrong places. And I'm beginning to think they always have.
So now that I am majorly depressed thinking about all this, I realize that things are never going to change. They are always going to stay the same. What I have to change is myself. I have to make things in MY life better for ME. I have been in a very deep pit of depression lately, and it has been very hard for me to get out of it. From missing my mom, to not being happy at work, to having an apartment (crappy duplex) that is ridden with ants (so much so that I can't keep ANYTHING on the kitchen counter without it being covered in ants), to gaining weight and hating my body. I have got to find a way out of this funk, just don't know how.
I think if I had a better place to stay, a job I was happier in, then everything else would fall into place. I'd be more content, I'd be less dreadful to wake up in the morning, and everything would start flowing more smoothly. But the way things are these days, those two key things are almost impossible to change! For instance, hardly anyone is hiring, and if they are, its not for as much as I get where I am right now...even though that's not much for what I do. And as for places to live, that's even more hard, because you have to have the money, much less the credit. I would LOVE to have my own house. No rent, no landlord, no worries. Plant a garden in the back, flowers in the front. No neighbors a car length away from you on either side, some even closer thanks to a duplex, with walls so paper thin you can hear the neighbor SNORING through the wall on the other side of your bedroom!
What I need is something to take up my time. Something to do. Yeah, I crochet, I knit, I craft. But I am getting in a slump with them. Everything I pick up to work on just bores me. I need to find something that I am good at, something that will be rewarding, that will make me feel like I am worth something when I do it. Something that will uplift me. something that will make me feel like I really have a purpose in this world.
My cousin, whom I have only seen maybe twice, is working on a family tree. Now, while all the things he is learning is VERY interesting, it is also depressing for me as well. Why? Mostly because of a few things: One, it is reminding me that I no longer have a living mother that I can go to when I need her. Two, it is reminding me that yes, everyone eventually dies, and without my grandma, I don't know what I'll do. And three, it reminds me that I am an only child, with a dad that could care less about her, and I am a 31 year old with no children of my own and a BF that probably has no intentions of keeping anything long-term with me. I say that lightly because we have been together 3 1/2 years, but when anything is mentioned about kids or marriage, he laughs. And while he is good to me, I honestly think that he's looking for something more than me, and when he finds it, he will be gone.
I have GOT to find a way to get out of this funk! I read books, I watch movies, and it makes me want to move, to get away from this dead-beat town. The problem with that? A job in the new place, money to be able to move and start over, and the fact that me leaving would mean my 86 year old grandma would have no one to check on her daily. No one to get her groceries every other week. I could not move away from here knowing that she's sitting there alone in her house, not able to leave the confines of her walls, starving because her pride was too big to call anyone and ask them to go to the grocery to get her food. I just couldn't do it.
So.....I'm done with this long, depressing blog. I do want to leave you on a good note, though. I have decided I want a new, better camera. I love taking pictures, and I see things that catch my eye and want to take pictures of them, but my dinky camera just doesn't do what I want it to. Yesterday afternoon, though, it did. This is what it gave me, and I really like it.
