Today I woke up around 1am. I sat in my bed looking at the phone. I was staring into what my mom had texted me. I had to really think about what is going on with my current situation. Was I really ready for anything coming my way? Or was I just using the whole “New Year” concept as thinking it really was a fresh start?
This afternoon I have to move all of my mothers things out of her soon-to-be evicted town home while she is half a world away living it up with her new husband or whatever he is. The only person coming to help is my sister which worries me. I feel like she ran to Korea to escape all of her problems and left it for me to clean up.
Yesterday when I was there I was all alone packing away. At first it seemed pretty straight forward. Pack things that need to be taken to storage and figure out what can be left behind that has almost no value to it. Easy, right? Well the more and more I packed the more and more bummed and stressed out I became. Every little thing I was wrapping it made me think of my old life. Where money wasn’t an issue, eviction was just a thing we’ve heard of and not experience, and where a future was bright for everyone. Now everything was dark, dull, and gray. I looked outside and saw the snow falling. It took me back to where I was sitting in our living room at my old house, which was the size of my moms town home, and just stared at the crystals and little priceless figurines in the display case. I would always wonder how my mom could afford such things to just be used only for display purposes. I always thought it was such a waste of money.
I called my sister halfway into packing everything. I told her that I stumbled upon a box of old photos of me as a kid. I smiled in almost every picture and it looked like I really meant every single one of those smiles. As crappy of a life on the inside I had growing up, on the outside it was a dream that I miss. We had no financial worries at all. Missing a bill payment never happened. Never losing anything due to money never happened. I always found myself sitting on the couch surrounded by the packed boxes asking myself “how did our lives get to this point?”
I forgot I left the eviction notice stuck on the door so I went outside and ripped it off. I looked at it and saw my name on the eviction. I forgot that I had helped my mother get the place. I was always there for her. I was her crutch when she needed one. I was her emotional support. One thing that I had realized is that she relied on me way too much.
I’m her son, not her husband. I shouldn’t be putting myself in these situations for her. This is what having compassion and a soft spot does to you. It puts you in situations you will regret later because at the time I was vulnerable. I felt sorry for her. I felt bad. I felt everything that made me strong enough to say I would help her no matter what. Now that I am nearing the time in my life where I should be getting everything together and collected she is ruining it. Now thanks to her my credit score had been plummeting. Thanks to her I can’t get the home I always wanted for a while. Thanks to her my life has to be put on hold so that she can progress with hers.
Looking back at all of this, everything in my life had been put on hold because of her. It’s time for me to stop being the nice guy to her and let her fall in her own mistakes. She can’t drag people down with her anymore. If she truly cared about me she wouldn’t put me in these situations of financial stress and constant worry.
Don’t get me wrong… I love my mother more than anything. I wouldn’t of done any of this if I hated her. But the thing is that I can only do so much for her. If she doesn’t learn anything from my kind gestures then she really doesn’t care about them too much. She takes everything for granted and doesn’t think half the time. She is stuck in this denial reality of her’s and constantly thinks everything will be fine with a phone call and a sad story. But this is the real world. No one cares about sad stories because they don’t pay the bills you owe.
Now that she is with some rich international business man living it up in Korea I think I will try to convince her to pay off some of my debt ($3,000 isn’t too much, but it will help) as paying it forward to me. For all the years I held her up, for all the years I carried her on, and for all the times I put her financial needs in front of my own I think it’s time to start calling it all in.
I thought about what if I had a family. Would I still put my mother first and myself and them second? I can be persuaded into things that I don’t want to do, but because I feel bad I do it anyway. Every single ex would of been my ex a heck of a lot sooner if I didn’t have such a big heart and believed them when they said “where will I go if we aren’t together?” I hate that I feel too bad about everything. If there is one thing that I wish I could change about me it would be I wish I could think for myself for once. I wish I couldn’t feel so bad and be so easily manipulated into things. Sometimes having a big heart is what can hurt the most. I have lived with people I hated, friends with people who are liars, and helped those who never tried to help themselves first.
My mind is slowly slipping with each year coming. I have been pounded in the head with everything that life has thrown at me. I feel like having my girl with me in my life is the only thing that is keeping me from hitting my breaking point. She knows exactly how to read people and if it wasn’t for her I don’t think I would be as put together I am right now than I would be without her. Talking to her mother on the phone also helped a lot. I think I am starting to flow and hang with the right people in my life.
I needed people who have stood up for themselves. I needed people who could see reality and not live in some fantasy world of denial. People who are realists seem to have it more put together than people like me. I’m not saying they don’t have a big heart or anything like that because trust me no one has a bigger heart than my sweet lady does, but what I’m saying is that they don’t stress about reality. They know what is going on and they are able to formulate a plan instead of spending hours freaking out and not getting anything done. Thanks to them I was able to sit down and formulate exactly how to execute every bit of my plan for today and for the rest of the weekend. It may not be the best plan, but it’s a plan nonetheless.
I can’t be sucked into my mothers problems anymore. As much as it hurts, I have my own life to put together. I want to start building a life with my sweetheart. I want to take us out of the renter society and start building our own life together. She has so much to teach me still and I feel like I will mentally exhaust her. She has been living in the real world since day one. I was pampered and spoiled and tossed into the real world a little too late. One thing that will never change is my love for her. She can change almost every way I can think or feel about life, but one thing she will never change is my feelings for her.
But I guess it’s time to get ready for today. My arms are killing me after my workout last night so this move should be interesting.
Sooner or later I’ll figure my stuff out and get it right. Soon I hope…
Above and Below Average 