Jacquelyn's Space

Because I am all over the place, this post will be all over the place.

I haven’t hardly posted anything this year. I look back at the posts I did make and it seems forever ago, at least years ago. I don’t know why this years seems to be dragging on. I don’t mean to complain. I tend to want to slow down time, it is just that I have been battling depression (it expresses itself in anger) this year so everything seems kind of shitty and dark. I haven’t been happy and I need to figure out why. I have many blessings so it makes me feel even worse that I have been so angry and ungrateful.

When I really think about it, the thing I think is making me the most unhappy is I want more money. I hate to get so twisted up over money and it’s not like I am poor. I have a lot more than a lot of people and I should feel fortunate. I should…and I do, some of the time. But I just want to make more and more money. I think I am feeling the crunch of my age. How much longer can I work? How much retirement do I need and how much can I acquire before I can’t work anymore? Really, I don’t want to work any more. Ha! So many other things I want to be doing. It’s not just all about retirement though.

There are just too many things that I want. WANT, not need. I can’t seem to stop wanting things. Yes, material things on top of wanting better for my family and wanting to help the world. Well mostly animals because fuck people.

But in addition to that, in all reality, what is really bugging me, is that I want more money so I can help family and animals. My mom needs help. My brother needs help. My stepson needs help. I can’t afford to help them. I can’t even do things for them because I work full time and by the time I am done working full time, I am done. All my energy is gone. I can’t afford to not work…I can’t afford to give them money…and really, some of it is that they just need some of my time. I can’t afford to give them time. I’ve been feeling that crappy and I feel more crappy because I feel crappy.

My mom had a stroke on 2019. She stayed with me for a few months after a few months in rehab. She didn’t want to stay longer. She didn’t want any more rehab or physical therapy. She wanted to live up north, to continue to live up north on her own though she can’t physically do it. She was hoping to have some come and live with her but she expects a lot from people that stay with her and ultimately I think her demanding personality scares people away. I know I have trouble dealing with her. My poor nephews have been stuck with her for the most part because their dad (my brother) just drops them on my mom. I can’t go up north and take care of her, I have my own stuff I have to take care of down here, not to mention my husband. Thank God I don’t have kids. I for sure don’t have the energy to clean her house and I don’t like staying with her anyway because her house stinks of cigarettes and musty basement. I can’t fix these issues. I tried to help her but she is so stubborn and has to do things her way. Plus she got herself into a mess of financial problems with Medicare due to her own stubbornness. Her savings and investments are pretty much gone. It is all very sad and depressing and I can’t do anything about it to help. What’s gone is gone and the Medicare stuff is something I don’t even want to deal with. Now my mom is talking about selling her house and she will need help with that. I don’t have any idea where she will go. No fucking idea. She cannot live with me, not unless I have a bigger house on a bigger piece of land. She supposedly asked my dad if he wanted a roommate. Yeah, not that all her money is gone (half of their retirement savings she got in the divorce) she wants to go back to my dad. He don’t want any part of her BS though he does help her when he can, just not with money. It is all a big mess. It is tragic when you boil it all down. Tragic.

My brother, at 43, just had another kid. He can’t even take care of the 3 boys he has already but he had another baby. His on again off again girlfriend and baby mama is 28. 28! I like her, she’s sweet. It seems she is trying to whip him into shape and I really feel for her. I hope she can succeed where others have failed. I hope it is the right time and my brother is ready to make the change. Lord knows I can’t help. I basically stay away from my brother because he drives me crazy. I don’t want to get drawn into the messes he creates because he doesn’t want to do the right things. I do want to spend time with the new baby and I want to get to know his girlfriend. I also miss my nephews. I want to spend more time with my family but it all comes back to energy, or my lack there of. It is frustrating.

The baby is about 2 months old now and I just saw her for the first time a week ago. My brother kept bugging me to see the baby. I wanted to see the baby, but I didn’t want to go anywhere. I finally made the effort. It was nice.

My dad tries to help both my mom and my brother when he can. He says he is done loaning my brother money. I hope he is because my brother doesn’t pay him back, often because he just cannot. My brother doesn’t work a regular job. He cannot. He has issues that make if next to impossible for him to work a regular joe type of job. I think he is bipolar. I know he is ADHD. He probably could get disability if he had the attention span to apply and follow through. But he doesn’t so he won’t. Well, he has a misplaced pride too. He don’t want a handout, so he says but he has little problem taking from my parents though they can’t afford to support him and his kids. Hell, they already bought him a house.

But my dad, my dad. I was scared for him. He had a stroke in December of 2020. He didn’t even realize he had had a stroke. He woke up, got out of bed, and fell down right away because one side when weak. He even hit his head upon the window sill, yet he went about his day as if nothing had happened. He went to the foot doctor, he went to see his girlfriend who lives an hour away from him. He felt a little funny, really tired, and he kept dropping things. He went over to my mom’s house to take my nephew to the hospital at my mom’s request and he was telling her that he wasn’t feeling right. My mom convinced to go to the hospital. So yeah, he did, and yeah, he had had a stroke. Thankfully it didn’t do much damage. He found out that a carotid artery on one side is 100% blocked. Nothing they can do for that. There is blockage on the other side but not too bad. He is on blood thinners now and thankfully he went back to his normal routine. He is really active and I am happy about that. He likes to play pickle ball. I worry about him, living alone in the middle of 20 acres, far away from town but that’s how he wants it. So I just worry and hope for the best. He did asked me to put a tracker on his phone so did do that. I think it was because he was concerned because he keeps saying his memory is getting really bad. Yikes.

He was good for over 6 months. Then he was having chest pains so he went to a cardiologist. They did a stress test. Test was abnormal. Supposedly, he had an abnormal stress test a couple of years before –nobody told him. Cardiologist didn’t know what was going on, just gave him some new meds (nitro was one) and told him to call or go to the hospital if the chest pains worsened. Well they did. He wasn’t feeling well one Thursday and went to the hospital in the evening. I was busy working and not monitoring the tracker. I didn’t realize he had went to the hospital until Saturday when my brother messaged me via Facebook. He only knew because he had called my dad–he needed help on the job he was doing. UGH!! My dad had blockages in his heard and they were transferring him to the bigger hospital in Traverse City. Thankfully they were able to stent (going through his wrist) the blockages. He had 2 angioplasty procedures. I went up for the first one, with my Aunt JoAnne. My dad also had a strep infection so that was worrisome but everything went well. Thank God! I had to miss 3 days of work. I was going to go for the second angioplasty but my Aunt arranged it so my Uncle Bill would take my dad to that one. I had the time off but my husband and I had a trip planned. Everything worked out and I am glad my extended family came through for me because Lord knows my brother didn’t and my mother couldn’t.

So my dad is well and he went to cardio-rehab though he doesn’t really need it. He got the okay to go back to pickle ball. He can go back to his regular routine, he just needs to watch it. I worry about him though, he is still living all alone in the middle of 20 acres. I need to visit him more. He is actually the parent that is doing better. I really need to worry about my mom more. Her problems are just so huge and overwhelming. I just can’t even…plus, she is depressed (though she doesn’t realize just how much and would not even admit or get treatment for it) and she lets her depression get the better of her. That and her physical pain–she won’t do anything because it hurts but sometimes you got to make yourself do things regardless. Her issues play on my issues and I end up getting really depressed when I am around her. So I stay away. Not that I have the energy to visit her (or anybody) anyway.

My stepson, he is doing okay. I wish he was doing better. He and his girlfriend need help with her kids. She has four kids! That’s a lot to handle. He kept asking me to babysit. Well, he’d call his dad and ask him if I could babysit. Ha! I really can’t because I work full time and you know, energy or my lack there of. Well, some of the time they would need a babysitter bleeds into my work schedule anyway. I would like to help, I would like to spend some time with the kids to get to know them but I just can’t. It makes me feel bad because I know they really need the help. I wish I could help them afford a larger home too. They really need it. I don’t know, I guess that is something they will have to work on themselves. They seem happy regardless so I try not to worry too much about them.

Then there is my husband. He is really getting the shaft. I’ve been feeling like such shit, and I really just want to be alone so my husband has not been getting the attention he needs. Well, I try but I feel like I am doing the bare minimum. He does a lot of work around the house (mostly the yard) in addition to working more than a full time job. Plus school, he is going to school now too (and complains about it quite a bit because the online stuff sucks, the professor suck, his computer and/or the internet is slow…) I want to help out more but physically and mentally I cannot. Then he wants to go out and do more, and I cannot. I just want to hide away… though the times I have spent out, with family (or my work fam) anyway, I have come to the realization that socializing does make me feel better.

To complicate matters, we got a puppy. My husband really wanted a dog. I was okay with it before I knew just how much work a puppy is. It is like having a toddler. It is getting better but the puppy needs a lot of attention, attention I just cannot and don’t feel like giving right now. I was fine with just having a cat. Hell, I couldn’t even give her all the attention she needed. So go around feeling guilty all the time because my husband, the dog, and my cat are all getting the shaft. Everyone wants attention but all I want to do is have time to myself, for myself.

I went to my cousin’s wedding Friday night, my dad’s side of the family, and I did have a good time though I bitched about going. I hate to admit it but being around people does make me feel better. It does seem to energize me in some way. I just need to get over the hump of not wanting to go out, of wanting to hide away.

Writing this has helped. I see that worrying about everybody else has diverted my attention away from worrying about me. There isn’t much ME right now although I feel like I am being very selfish. All I do is work and come home and lay around because I feel so bad. It isn’t just about worrying about everyone else, it is about the pain I am in. Mental pain because I can’t do the things I want and physical pain, mostly physical pain. My knees hurt, varying degrees of pain and discomfort all the time, and then my lower back gets pinched and starts hurting, ultimately becoming stiff until it is hard to move my legs. Not to mention all the pain I often feel from fibromyalgia–neck and shoulder pain….it is too much. I get overwhelmed. So thus, I am unhappy. I need to break out of this somehow. I need to get ME back. I need to quit hiding away.