Broken Peace Treaties

Dear Hearts,

“I mean you’re so much like your mother

I can’t believe it.

You’re your fuckin’ mother through and through.” True Romance

I love my Mother. I could not have been more blessed with a mother than I am with her.

But she is the consummate people-pleaser, worrier, and obsesser.

Dad sleeps with the TV on all night. He pretty much has the TV on all the time.

G-Pa believes that the TV (a 30-plus-year box TV) will get too hot and burn out if it’s watched all the time.

This has become my problem to broker peace. Convince G-Pa that having the TV on always will not break it. If the TV “goes belly up,” it’s because it’s a 30-plus-year box TV. Dad’s watching has naught to do with it.

Why is this my problem? It’s not, but I feel like it is. I need to keep everyone happy. It’s not easy always being the fixer.

Stop it, you say?

I wish it were that easy.

For as long as I have brokered peace in whatever house I live in—often at my own expense.

(I used to goad, when I was very young, my parents into fights by saying one thing or the other that I knew dad would get pissed about. I don’t know why I did it. And, I regret it. Mom says it was my way of exerting control in a house in which I felt powerless.)

When Asshole and I bought The House—he systematically had a psychotic break. I recalled an instance this morning when Dad has left no toilet paper. I used a tissue instead.

That happened on hot June weekend after Asshole and I moved into The House. We ran out of paper. So I figured we’d just use tissues. I know by the time of year that I was stressed to the max at school with regents, finals, and all that end of the year stuff that has to get done in a high school. (You would not even believe…)

I was also in my second term of grad school and getting ready to leave for an intense ten-day program in Cambridge. So, I was doing tending to grad school full time. I also had just moved into my first house and everything was in disarray. At any moment he would scream at me over whatever. Literally. But, you know, he, too, was stressed because the FBI and ACLU were following him. (In his job-less reality)

I just tried to stay out of the way.

When he saw I had put tissues out instead of real paper. He flipped out. I can see the scene in my head and hear his words. I can feel my…seething.

The drunken felon and troll who lived across the country road were sitting on their porches getting a good look at my tits and ass as I did stuff around the house. That pissed Asshole off too. I should cover up in 90 degree weather. He definitely should not have ignored them or went over and told them to mind their line of sight.

I was in bad trouble. He yelled at me—I don’t remember the exact words. But, I was in deep trouble. I was selfish, irresponsible, lazy, and ungrateful. (I hadn’t become a “fucking retard” yet.) So I drove into town and got paper for Asshole—and me.

On Monday, I stole a roll of paper from school. It still sits in the bathroom closet. It was my “emergency roll,” so I would not get in trouble over that again.

He was unemployed by choice. I working at school and on grad school full time.

I should have told him, “No.”

“You go and get the paper.”

But I didn’t, I just seethed. I can remember walking across the yard to the car just seething inside.

I did what I was told to keep the peace—to stay out of trouble. Even though there was no peace in that house at that point and I was already in trouble.

I did that as a kid too.

Dad thinks it’s useless for Martha to talk to me about my childhood and teenage years—where I lived through the same thing. Dad says I need to forget.

I will never forget him throwing a rack of ribs at my mom. She was at the sink and he was at the dinner table. They were arguing over a school concert of mine—if he could leave the concert early I think. (That’s when all elementary kids--20 per grade first to fifth—all sang in the concerts. That was stupid and I hated it. But I’ll never forget that image. The ribs hit the window above my mom’s head and fell into the sink.

Yet, I was Daddy’s Little Girl. Literally. I still am.

That’s a mother-fucking paradox.

If a kid had told me that story when I was teaching—I would have been required to call CPS.

I came out here so I would kill myself. Oh, hell yes, I have a plan—this time it would work. I don’t intend on using it—but the Exit Strategy is there just in case.

So it was here or the morgue.

I am still depressed and episodic out here. But I am drawing, coloring, and writing.

I give up on working right now. I just give up. I don’t know what will happen when the union benefits run out and I am just on SSD. I am not doing anything about it. I’m just waiting to tsunami to sweep me away.

“Broken bottles, broken plates

Broken switches, broken gates

Broken dishes, broken hearts

Broken words never meant to be spoke

Every is broken

Seems like every time you stop and turn around

Something else hit the ground” Bob Dylan

Originally I was supposed to come out here to not have to worry about getting in trouble. No one here would call me a fucking bitch or threaten to smash my fucking teeth in. Any where but the nose—that sinus surgery in 2010 was brutal. I have a 10 thousand dollar nose. Don’t hit the nose. Or the colon.

Now I am out here but I still worry about getting in trouble.

G-Pa is good to me. He really, really is. He has his anxieties. Just because he criticizes my driving doesn’t mean I’m doing wrong.

So it’s not G-Pa’s fault. It’s not Dad’s fault. (IT SURE AIN’T YOUR FAULT MOM.) It might be Bugsy’s fault. If he gets too ornery I may Jersey him a bit.

How DO I get over worrying about getting in trouble? How do I break a lifelong ingrained-as-I-breathe-habit?

Every fucking relationship I’ve had follows the above pattern. Every fucking job too.

Why can I right now hear T. berating me in my head?

Fucking Cunt Hillary (I felt that way about her in ’92 and I voted for her dick husband in ’94) said she wanted to curl up with a good book. Fuck that. She did not. She wanted to take a fucking gun—or hire someone—to fucking kill Trump and the GOP.

I do just want to curl up in my bedroom and not leave. Not ever. Please just stop time and don’t make me deal with the real world. I swear I will be good and not get in trouble.

Smoke ‘em if ya’ got ‘em. God Bless

In the name of The Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; Mother Mary, Saint Brigid; Saint Jude; Saint Therese Lisieux; Saint Peter; Archangel Michael, and my Guardian Angel, Jed.

PS: This is one of those blogs that just wrote itself. I didn’t intend to write all that I did.

PPS: NOT YOUR FAULT MOM

PPPS: If I am going to live, then I have to break this cycle. Fuck, I can’t even quit smoking and I don’t want to. The former is a lot of work and I’m tired.