Category: Family

Heading home tomorrow.

I’d planned to leave yesterday or today. But Mom wanted to have a family Sunday dinner. I’m cool with that. The last time I visited FL was 7, maybe 8 years ago I doubt that I’m going to have as long a hiatus before my next visit.

You know the saying, “if you don’t use it you lose it,” that’s unfortunately whats happening with my folks. They really don’t move around a lot and as a result, it’s getting harder for them to move.

I compare my Mom to my Aunt and its night and day. Even though my Aunt is the older sister she’s in a lot better shape and part of it is that she just moves around all the time. She’s always doing something, whether that’s working in the yard or fiddling with some new recipe.

As a consequence, she’s lighter, stronger, and healthier, overall. Yeah she’s got a couple of problems with her hips but nothing like the problem Mom has.

So I’ve learned a lot while I’ve been here. First and foremost is take care of yourself. It’s all too easy these days to plop yourself down in front of the TV and do nothing. All I can say is DON’T!

Stay in motion, work out, walk, breathe the air, and live your life, don’t let things pass you by.

The consequences of doing nothing are terrible and painful for you and for your loved ones to watch.

Imagine your family not wanting to visit; not because they don’t love you, but because you’ve become so disgusting that they don’t want to visit, or expose their children to you. 

That’s exactly what can happen if you don’t take care of yourself. Yes! There are boundaries even to love.

Watch what you eat. Salt is a killer! My BP has climbed steadily since I’ve been here.

Part of that climb is due to the fact that everything in this house is processed to the point that it’s just barely food, and it is loaded with salt! Part of it is that I’m used to drinking a lot of tea and water at home. Here I’ve not been thirsty and that means that I’m not flushing salt out of my system. This is BAD! Unfortunately it’s very easy to do.

I think it’s going to take at least a couple of months for me to get stuff like diet and salt intake and fluid intake back on track again.

Yes, I could go to the grocery store and buy my own food and make healthy choices. Problem is, that would be somewhat rude to my folks. So I’ve decided to just tough it out, eating what they eat when they eat it.

Tomorrow at the gas stop, before I hit the interstate, I’m loading up on water and will start flushing my system on the drive home. So what if I’m pissing at the side of the road, there’s a whole lot of open lonely roads between here and home.

I could use a massage, and some naked time! I don’t think I’ll get either until I get home. Yeah I can be naked in a hotel room but I tend to sleep, shower, and take off. It’s not like Palm Springs where I can spend a day by the pool just relaxing.

As to the massage. Well, do I take a chance on someone; I want a massage, not a quick jerk off. It’s difficult to tell the legitimate massage folks from the “I’ll rub your but for a minute and then get you off” crowd.

Don’t get me wrong, there’s room in my world for both practitioners, but I really want a massage I’ll handle my own dick thank you…

I’ll sleep on that one. I don’t have to make a decision right at this moment.

It will be good to be back on the road. I’m tired of seeing the inside of the grocery store, the home repair store, staples, and the grocery store again. I’m also kinda tired of picking up after my stepdad and him leaving a trail of paper, crumbs, paper towels, tea stains on the counters, and greasy fingerprints on the fridge.

I suppose all families are dysfunctional in some way.

As our parents age I guess that their good points and bad points are accentuated.

In the case of my parents at least, this is true. 

I’ve been here a month, I’ve cleaned, fixed, moved stuff and made suggestions for the longer term fixes that should be made by professionals.

My stepdad was unfortunately the one who answered a phone call about repairing the wiring and adding a timer for the pool pump. He talked for about 5 minutes then hung up the phone. (I couldn’t help but flash on myself at 15 expecting a call from friends inviting me to a concert and knowing the call came, my stepdad intercepted it then lied to my face. I knew he was lying because he said you don’t need to go to a concert, as he was telling me there’d been no call for me.)

I asked him what the estimate on the timer and replacement of bad wiring was, his response “There is no Estimate!”

Ahhh you can lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink. You can however drown ‘em in that same pool of water!

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The problem here is denial. 

Neither of my parents are in good health, and while they’re not that old, they are both overweight and haven’t taken care of themselves particularly well through the years.

You could open a well stocked pharmacy with all the prescriptions on the counter tops.

Neither of them can keep up with this house anymore. My stepdad thinks he’s handy, but he’s not. When it comes to things like tools, being able to build something, or repair anything he’s all but useless. 

Case in point. This is what happens when a breaker blows.

Clearly the reason the exterior outlet isn’t working is because there’s something wrong with the wiring! Obviously it must be torn out and sorted, then left hanging out of the conduit! Yeah that will make it work better!

I have to wait for the parents to be gone when I try to fix this one. I’m going to have to turn off breakers and that would interrupt the incessant babbling of the TV.  

That’s not too big a deal but the stepdad would what to know what I’m doing and why. Then he’ll be yelling and swearing; “I’ve been meaning to get back to that!” (I personally know these wires have been like this for 2 years.)

I’ve done what I can, much of it invisible. Many of the repairs I’ve made are things that will escape their notice, except that things will simply work. 

Neither of them want to admit that they’re losing the battle against entropy.

None of us ever wants to admit that. But there comes a time when you have to simply accept what’s happening and adapt.

I’ve made the suggestion that they sell this place and move to something more manageable. That suggestion went over like a lead ballon.

My sister and I have made the suggestion that they get a housekeeper. You’d have thought we killed the cat.

Their refusal to admit what’s happening, isn’t all that unusual, but they refuse to see that their quality of life is degrading or that all it takes is a phone call to a cleaning firm, or a repair firm to reverse the tide.

My mom is closer to accepting this reality than my stepdad.

For him it’s about ego and pride (even though he was NEVER good at household maintenance. He’s an academic with tons of book knowledge and zero common sense.

It’s funny, all his brothers got the “Builder Gene” One is a contractor, the other is a former contractor, the third is, or was a sign painter / builder.

One of my grandfathers was a “Master Carpenter”. My genetic dad was good a fixing and building stuff. I spent a summer visit with him helping to build a house. It was fun and he was great at giving instructions that even as a kid I could follow without hesitation.

I came by the fix it gene honestly, from both sides of the family.

My stepdad never learned how things worked or developed any artistic ability when it comes to patching holes with spackle, and God help you if he wants to help you paint. None of his tools get put back where they belong or cleaned properly. 

He used to blame us kids about lost / damaged tools. These days he stomps around and swears when a tool goes missing but has no-one to blame. He absolutely will not admit the tool was lost because he didn’t put it back.

I’ve wandered around the yard and collected all kinds of tools from wherever he dropped them. The scary ones were the sharp tined tools laying at the bottom of stairs, tines up! 

At least in the time I’ve been here I’ve managed to make the place a little safer and a little better. 

Now that my stepdad is strong enough to start fighting or undoing every change or cleanup, it’s time for me to go. I’ve got my life and my house to tend to.

I don’t need my blood pressure continuing to creep up due to the constant bickering between my mom and stepdad or the outright battle to simply fix broken things around this place.

I’m going to have dinner with my sister to plan for the future, then I’m heading home.