My life and mom’s life have been intertwined for most of my life. Many of my life’s troubles have been instigated by trying to mitigate the troubles in my mom’s life. Even now, I am in my mom/my house trying to establish my mom with a caregiver and settle her into a life that is as independent as can be possible. How long is my life to be like this before my life can return back to normal? Can my life return to what it once was? Should it?

If I can return to a quote from the “Lord of the Rings”,

“I wish it need not have happened in my time,” said Frodo. “So do I,” said Gandalf, “and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.”

I had a serious meltdown yesterday. I was trying to take care of the house, get my siblings to be involved, take care of our mother, mitigate conflict with our brother, go get family counseling, get my work done. I was feeling so much pressure on my chest and then to get screamed and cursed at by my younger brother, I bottled all that stress and when I started talking about it with the monk and in front my mother, I broke down and cried.

I didn’t ask for this. I didn’t want to take this on. I told my mom i wanted to live a life of freedom. I didn’t have children not to take care of my mother instead. But I can’t let my mom go into a facility being taken care of outsiders. Am I taking the responsibility? Yes, I’m taking the responsibility of helping carry out my mom’s wishes. Does there need to be someone who takes the lead responsibility? Noone wants to take the responsibility. I’m assuming that role simply because noone else wants it and mom needs to be taken care of.

This is not the life I wanted to live right now. I’m resisting it. It’s not fun. It’s about sacrifice and hard work. It’s about being strong about what I think is right despite the easier option that my other siblings are exercising of not caring, of disparaging me for being manipulated by mom. How is she manipulating me exactly? By pretending to be in desperate straits to engender sympathy from me so that I don’t put her in a home? If she was terrible to me now, maybe it would be easier for me to put her in a nursing facility. But if this is all a front because she doesn’t want to be in a nursing facility, she’s putting up a good facade to be agreeable. In the end, it doesn’t really matter if she was manipulating me into treating her well. If she was terrible to me, I would still try to do the right thing and keep her out of a facility. But since she’s treating me well, I guess my actions aren’t all that impressive. Secretly, i think they’re using that as another excuse to not be involved. While they believe they are setting boundaries, they’re also ignoring the problem, hoping someone else will take care of it. It’s the four of us, the same four who’s always been around. Some things don’t change I guess.