It's crazy, but after most dinners with my family, I feel like a dark cloud is hovering over me and it leaves me feeling bummed out for days. Hate that. So here is me getting it all out, getting it off my chest... hoping putting it out here will release this dark mood. Sigh.
So last night's dinner was a late Thanksgiving dinner... as far as family dinners go, this one was relatively drama free... but still... it's the little things that don't happen in a NORMAL family that are constant reminders that things are not ok.
Mom made a turkey, insists that we don't do potlucks since WE don't do it that way. Fine. So as is often the case, she doesn't plan very well, and ends up not having room to cook the rice dish in the oven since the turkey took up so much room. My mother doesn't like cooking... have no idea why she refuses to just let us do a potluck. Anyhow, sister#2 (wanna-be train wreck?, cocaine use in past, heavy social drinker, multiple car crashes which have left her on disability) volunteers to bake rice dish at her friend's house - sister#2 apparently leaves to cook the dish at 3 p.m., and is supposed to return with it at 6 p.m.
I am at work all day - hubby and kids wait for me to get home - at 6:30 I'm home and we head over to my parent's place for dinner. This should be interesting since my kids are usually in bed by 7 or 7:30 p.m. (hoping they actually slept during nap time hehe).
We get there and no dinner. Sister #2 is still not back with the rice dish that she is supposedly baking at her friend's place.
My mom is buzzed, and says she's on her 5th drink - she tends to overdo it a few times a year at family things, but otherwise functions normally - this makes me sad to see her numbing herself with alcohol though, I think she finds these family things stressful and is trying to make it feel better? - she makes me a vodka and orange juice (note for context: I'm the one who has been drunk only 3 times in my entire life, have never smoked, never touched drugs)
Sister#1 (the recovering cocaine addict, sometimes alcoholic (depending on if it's convenient for her to call herself one), off work on disability for her drug issues, single mother, train wreck), immediately attributes my happy demeanor to the drink - I guess in her mind, 1 drink is enough to make me drunk, and if I'm happy, it must be because I'm drunk? WTF?
Inside I feel irritated since the drink was not strong (couldn't even taste the vodka), and I'm acting happy since I am trying to have a nice time despite the drama that inevitably will occur - I am not freaking drunk, or even close to it - it was one drink for god's sake. Good grief.
I finish the drink sometime after 7. Sister#1 still wisecracking about how fun it is to see me this way... again implying the drink is making me drunk or something... I seethe inside, smile on the outside.
I don't think she is trying to **** me off... but I'm pissed off anyways.
Still no sign of sister#2 with the rice dish she was supposed to be baking. My mother offers me another drink, I accept. I nurse this drink for the next 2 hours - I'm hungry, and I don't want to have 2 drinks on an empty stomach... so I take my time with it.
My mom calls sister#2 at 8 p.m. - sister#2 says she is just leaving and will be there in 30 minutes - friend's house is supposedly not far away, so this should be no problem. 8:30 rolls around and no sign of her - we decide to eat anyways - turkey with cranberry sauce, meatballs with gravy, and cauliflower. The rice dish sister#2 has is a major part of the meal... hence the odd menu we are left with. Nice. I butter some bread for my kids so they won't be hungry after this meal.
We eat desert... Chatting afterwards, I find out from my mother that sister#2 apparently gambled away the 50k she got as an insurance payout for her car crashes. I wonder if this is really the case, or did she spend it on drugs? This saddens me... I feel bummed out... What the hell is she doing? Has she lost her mind? Who the hell DOES that? That's a crapload of money that could have been used for something good - not wasted on crap. Freaking hell. She could have traveled around the world for a year on that money. TWICE. She could have used it for a downpayment on a condo. So many other things she could have done with that money. Idiot.
We eat dessert.
Sister#1 is having issues with her ex-con father of her child... no surprise there... she talks about her bi-polar diagnosis (oh... is it that again? last time all your problems were apparently due to adult ADHD... interesting), she talks about how she can't help herself and sobs around her 4 year old son, who then comforts her. She feels bad she says, but can't help it. Tells us how she tells her son he has to listen to her and follow the rules so he doesn't end up in jail one day. You tell that to a FOUR year old? Freaking hell. Who DOES that?!?!
9 p.m. rolls around and shortly after sister#2 shows up... kind of... she is in her car, and her friend comes to the door with the rice dish that was supposed to be here 3 hours ago - says sister#2 doesn't feel comfortable coming inside since she had a falling out with sister#1 earlier. Ooooooo-kay. Whatever. I wonder what sister#2 has really been doing over the past 6 hours - drugs?
Who the hell knows... and I worry about the fact that she is driving since she gets into so many car crashes when doing so...
But she won't come to the door, I'm busy helping to get my kids jackets on so we can go home and get them to bed - it's late and they have to get up early for school the next day... I hope it won't be hard to get them up in the morning since they are sure to be overtired...
I wake up a few times in the night and the first place my thoughts go is to sister#2 and wondering what the hell she was doing over those 6 hours... then my thoughts drift to sister#1 assuming I'm drunk or something... still feeling pissed off and insulted at that. She has no business putting her issues on me - I'm the responsible one... screw her... I fall back asleep.
And... now it's today... I'm sipping on tea, still irritated, sad, bummed out, and can't concentrate worth a damn on anything since my thoughts keep returning to last night. I hate that. Always happens to me after these family things. I feel... haunted by it. Yes, that's the perfect word for this. I'm haunted by it.
Why can't I learn to NOT react this way?
I'm leaving next year with my hubby and kids to travel a couple of years... or more... - I call it our pre-mid-life crisis (We're not rich... just aggressive accumulators of reward miles for free flights, aggressive savers, and renting out our house/selling a bunch of stuff to fund this) I only mention this because I will be RELIEVED to be so far away from all this - I will literally be on the opposite side of the planet from all of it - can't get much farther away than that.
It will be nice to escape it for a good long while. We'll just... be gone... God, I can't wait to be gone... I guess this is my way of running away. I NEED to. Every year this gets harder and harder for me to take... and I know things could be worse... I guess I'm just overly sensitive about it all.
In honour of Halloween, here is me flying away in style hehe
