serenity – Shrinking Horizons

I need a padded room where I can hide and bang my head against the wall. Nothing we ever do is good enough and all of the AP’s frustrations are taken out on us and me in particular. I am horrified at my own feelings. I really don’t like this woman who lives with us and really do not want her under our roof.

We are back to the annual Christmas card farce where we are to blame for not sending cards to her friends for whom we have no addresses. The fact that we include her on our cards to the relevant people seems to just sail past her. Actually I think unless it directly impacts on her’ most things ‘sail’ past. The AP’s response is that SHE has the addresses said, I may add, with an overload of sarcasm. So what really is her problem? Truth be told she doesn’t want to make the effort. Her sight is very poor but no worse than last year when she did her own cards that I addressed the envelopes for and she does have new reading glasses that apparently have made a difference. Why does she feel the need to send these cards, everyone would understand the problem. The truth is that she doesn’t send them for the recipient, only for herself. everything is a reflection of self. The me-me complex is all encompassing. Remember ME, alway ME.

I know two blacks don’t make a white etc. but I really have had enough of her. She has done nothing for my self esteem or my peace of mind.

The sympathy expressed when my brother died has inevitably all but gone and she is feeling sorry for herself. The world no longer revolves around her. When asked by others how she is we have the pathetic little voice and “I am coping, some good days and some bad days, up and down but (brave little voice moment) I am getting there.” I sometimes wonder where ‘there’ is, sadly not miles from here. This is usually followed by what an awful year it has been. It doesn’t seem to occur to her that it is the LSO and I who have had to cope with what the year has thrown at us as well as deal with the AP, her multitude of appointments, her vindictiveness and selfishness as well as her innate snobbery and the ridiculous vanity.

But I refuse to wallow in self pity and I am aware that my words seem at times harsh but we must try and get a semblance of normality back into our lives. I desperately miss the fact that I cannot talk to my brother but life isn’t always fair and we were lucky to have had so much quality contact during the last 18 months.

I also am aware that it will not be easy but 2018 will be and must be a new year in more ways than one.

I realise now having reflected long and hard about my current state of being that I am in need of finding some inner calm.

Another quote sprang out at me, again author unknown. ‘Peace of mind is not the absence of conflict from life but the ability to cope with it’. How true those words are.

Since the confrontation with the AP and the sad death of my brother I have felt myself withdraw emotionally from everything, falling almost into a state of depression. I feel an enormous loss not just because of my brother having gone but it has highlighted once again the loss of the life the LSO and I should have been leading during the past four years. The freedom we should have had whilst we are still fit and young enough to be able to enjoy so many different things. I feel as if I have and am just existing and really not coping very well with the stresses and strains that looking after a 99 year old brings and this doesn’t even include the acquiring of a metabolic as well as an auto immune disease during this time.

I feel some relief in that although some of the confrontation with the AP a couple of weeks ago was unpleasant, we at least were able to say the things that needed saying without angst on our part.

Generally there has been an improvement in her attitude and behaviour and if that sounds like I am discussing a recalcitrant child you would not be wrong because the AP behaves like one when unable to get her own way. Unfortunately one of the problems of having someone so old living with you is the inevitability of accidents. This time it has been the leaving on of the hot tap in the bathroom and the flooding of that room causing water to pour through the lights in the living room. Water has also seeped out onto the landing and into the bedrooms on either side. The AP hates to admit to being in the wrong and even now is trying to put the blame somewhere else when only she can have done this. It’s an accident and we all know accidents happen but it could have had much worse repercussions and I am just thankful that we were here. I will not be blackmailed with how awful she feels about it, just a simple ‘sorry’ would have been enough not the silly comment that ‘there must be something evil about’.

I now need to put in a coping strategy. One which can help all of us and in particular the LSO who has a long memory for injustice.

Tag: serenity

A silent scream.

In search of serenity.