My mom has been asked to check Arnold's answering machine for messages (he's still away in NYC). She doesn't know how, so I must go with her to figure it out. I should have known better.
I took Amanda to work and stopped for gas on the way home. The station was all out of gas. Bad sign. I stopped to pick up my mom. I told her we would have to go get gas in Gloucester. Get to the gas station and the window on my truck is frozen shut. I deal with it. Open the door, freeze, tell them what I need, close door. Open door, pay, close door. Pull out and try window again...it opens...oooooooookay.
Head for Arnold's house and mom wants to go the longer "scenic" route. Gee thanks but ooooooookay. It had actually snowed on that road at some point. Weird.
Got to Arnold's, picked all the mail up off the floor and sorted it to find some mail that should have gone to the neighbor's. Left that on the door for the mailperson to find tomorrow. Guess what? No messages on the machine because it wasn't even turned on. Another bad sign.
Soooooo.........get in the truck to head back home and mom says, "oh, by the way, could you drive me to the grocery store? I need milk and bread." Here we go. Okay, sure, fine, after all I have nothing else to do, right?
I take her to the store. She'll just be a minute she says. People park and go in, people come out and leave.....no mom. Where the --is she and what the --is taking her so long to get milk and bread? Finally she comes out with two bags of groceries! She thought she'd pick up some other stuff while she was there. I was freezing and anxious to get home. Not to mention seething.
That's it....tomorrow she can do her own errands.
5 comments:
Repeatt after me:
"No, I can not do that for you today".
"NO" I would love to but it doesn't fit into my schedule today."
"NO"
Repeat this upon rising and going to bed and frequently throughout the day and maybe you can say it outloud.
Ahhhh, in a perfect world! However.
But, I do get your point and I am working on that. It becomes weighing the difference between family harmony or being considered useless and "no help". I'm trying to work towards a happy (for everyone) medium.
Okay, that most likely won't happen LOL
An update. I tell mom that Amanda and I are doing our grocery shopping when I pick Amanda up from work. Mom says great she'll give me her list. I told her that it really wouldn't be convenient as Amanda would be paying and writing a check. If it was nothing she needed immediately it would be best if she did her own shopping. Well, the look I got! I did stand my ground though.
Good for you. Now the next step is to NOT look but just listen to the response when you stand up for your own life. It's the "look" that can make a kid (no matter how old) wither and feel guilty.
I am sure there are years of conditioning that have helped you to be the enabler and worker bee in the family. Hard to break the habit but you are on your way! NO matter how hard anyone tries, we are not responsible for other people's decisions to be postive or negative about life. Each person needs to take control of their own life. There will be nothing of you left for you, if you try to please everyone. Of course, if want you to do something, I want you to forget all this advice :-)
Geographic proximity is definitely detrimental! When I was in FL and they here, things worked much smoother. Still got the why aren't you here to deal with this routine, however! In many ways it was not a good decision to move back. However good things did come of it, too, mostly some spectacular friends ;-)
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