When it rains it pours

Ok I got my happy go lucky lighthearted post out of the way today...now for the more serious stuff going on in my life. I've avoided posting about anything too in depth because frankly, I just didn't have the energy. There is a lot going on. It's all upsetting. And I don't want my blog to be some big pity party. I don't want to non stop complain. And I don't want people to think my life is nothing but huge issues. Because for the most part, I do really well putting everything aside, being happy, living a normal life. But DAMN, things have gone to shit in the last 24 hours. And I can't help it, I can't hold it in any longer. I have to get this all off my chest.

First off, my family is NUTS. I've posted about that before I'm sure. My dad's crazy, and he can be really mean and abusive. He's a recovering alcoholic(among other things). He doesn't work, he's on disability...the government has actually deemed him a threat to the workplace and unsuitable for working. He's told me on occasion that he hates my guts and I'm not his daughter and he never wants to see me again. At which point I tell him I love him and I'll see him next week. My dad is my dad, and as long as he's not doing anything too horrible like chasing my sister around with knives (yes that happened which is crazy) or beating anyone, I'm fine with him. I keep my distance, I stay positive when talking to him so as not to let loose the demon within. We don't spend any time with him really. I prefer to surround myself with sane people. Anyway, my dad is depressed because my step mom left him. He also has various health problems that I really think he exaggerates quite a bit for sympathy. He keeps threatening to move to Arizona. Or kill himself.

That said, my stepmom left him a couple months ago. I don't blame her. She stuck with him way longer than my mom did, and she totally suffered the consequences. Back in the day, it was physical abuse. That tapered off for the most part, but the extreme emotional abuse continued. Finally she got up the guts and just left. She moved in with my step sister. The poor one with the 3 kids. My step sister kicked her husband out because apparently he's been sexually abusing my niece. My oldest nephew(he's 10 or so) has a juvenile officer already. He's threatened to kill my step sister. I never talk to my stepsister. I rarely ever see my step mom anymore and have talked to her on the phone once. Her and I are okay, we're getting along just fine.

My little sister just got married this past Saturday. I am so incredibly happy for her. But her husband is a marine, he's stationed in California. He will be in training all of January and then he's being deployed for the 2nd time in February. For this reason, my sister is staying here instead of moving to CA. She still lives with my dad. She wants to get her own place, because like I said, my dad is nuts. He makes her life hell. They do NOT get along. My sister is very head strong, she's very sassy, and she's very independent. She doesn't tell him where she's going, and she gets smart with him. And she lets his emotional abuse get to her...she hasn't learned to brush it off like I have as "that's just how dad is, oh well." So she's wanting to get her own place. She has debt from the wedding. She needs to save up money to get her own place. To get either of those things taken care of, she needs to continue to live at home for a while longer.

Which leads me to my next problem...I used to idolize my grandma(my dad's mom). She could do no wrong. I loved going to her house when I was little. Then I had Hailey, and she began harrassing me about how I did things with Hailey and how I took care of her...and I finally told her that she's my daughter and I know what's best for her...so she literally blew up at me and started screaming at me--in front of Hailey, no less...3 months old and had just gotten out of the hospital--and she told me she wasn't coming to my wedding. I started crying and asked her "are you serious, grandma this is me, your Erin and this is my WEDDING"(I was always the closest to her) and she said "Screw you I don't care who you are nobody treats me like that...and I'm telling my family not to come too." And she didn't come, and her family didn't either. Finally she apologized. I told her I'm not just one of the other adults in the family she can abuse and treat like crap. I've never felt the same about her since, but we moved on. Fastforward a year and a half. Now my grandma is harassing my little sister. She called her a few days before the wedding and told her she thinks her and my step mom have some little plan concocted to where after she gets married she's going to leave my dad and move in with my step mom and step sister. ????? First off, what business is it of hers if that did happen? Second of all, my sister was getting married, she was planning on starting her own life and getting out on her own. My grandma is more nuts than my dad is. Nevertheless my grandma did come to the wedding and she behaved herself. She had said she wasn't coming because of course she hates my step mom...but whatever, they both came, no drama happened. Now my grandma is STILL calling my sister and telling her she better not leave my dad alone, that she would be abandoning him...she tells my sister that my step mom is horrible and that my sister needs to pay my dad's bills and buy him food and clean the house. My sister is NOT my dad's wife, for God sakes. My dad is a grown man, he needs to do those things for himself! It is NOT my sister's responsibility! I've been livid with my grandma because of this. My sister has nobody to turn to. So she calls me, and cries to me. She doesn't understand why she's treating her like this. Finally she had enough. She told my dad his mother needed to stop calling and talking to her about my dad and my step mom because she didn't want to hear it anymore. My dad, being the crazy person he is(he lies a lot too did I mention--and creates stories in his head that I really think he believes are true) called my grandma and relayed the info to her--very warped I'm sure, basically saying my sister said a bunch of bad crap about my grandma. My grandma told him my sister needed to come get a card from our Uncle J that was at her house. She lives 30 minutes away from here. My sister, not knowing my dad ratted on her to my grandma, drove 30 minutes with my cousin R to get the card. When she walked in my grandma ignored her and said "Hi R how are you?" She then immediately layed into my sister. "Your dad told me what you said about me, I do NOT do that" blah blah blah. She shoved the card at my sister and said "of course you'll come if it's something for you like MONEY, that's all you care about"...my sister told her to keep the card and she left. She called me bawling, upset at how horrible she was treated. Not 30 minutes later my grandma calls me. "Hey, how are you all? Where's the baby? Surely you don't have her out in this cold? She's in the BACK SEAT, where ARE you?? Walmart?? OH. Well is her cold better? So I guess you've probably talked to your sister and know all about what's going on..." Wow she didn't waste any time. Didn't really give a crap about me, chastised me for taking my kid to Walmart (God I'm a horrible mother!) and then moved right on to the real reason for the phone call. To shit talk my sister. This is NOT NORMAL. Grandmas are old and sweet. They bake cookies and pies and talk about the good ol days, right? Not mine. I have held my tongue for a month now. I've kept all my feelings on this issue inside. Because it's not my place, it's not my problem. But I've had enough, and she brought me into it. I told her exactly what's been on my mind. About everything. I told her she needs to lay off my sister. Because she's NOT my dad's wife. It old her she's trying to make a life for herself. I told her my dad's life is screwed up because he made it that way. And that it's not my sister's responsibility to pick up his pieces or even to take care of him. That's not fair to her. Esp. now that she's married. I told her she is NOT a spoiled brat, and that it goes both ways. Yes she talks bad to my dad but OH MY GOD the way he talks to her is just horrible. It's abuse. My grandma also told me that she's got two guns and that the next time my step sister calls and harasses her she's taking care of her herself and then taking care of herself. HOW FREAKING INSANE. Come on. I told her that first of all, she is insane. Second of all, she needs to grow up and realize that my step sister NEEDS that drama and that she is NOT going to quit. She's going to keep on. I told my grandma that my step sister's life is beyond screwed up, it can't be salvaged...and she's trying to ruin my grandma's. And that if she "takes care of her" that is just letting her win. I told her to call the freaking cops, have a restraining order put on her. I told her she has family that loves her, she has things to live for. She has a good life. She needs to grow up and learn to ignore people like my step sister, or let the law take care of it and move on with her life. I also told her that it really hurts me that I've got my dad threatening to me that he's going to kill himself, and that now she's threatening to not only off my step sister but also kill herself, and they both know damn well that my cousin who was like a brother to me killed himself my senior year in high school and that it scarred me for life. I told her that it really really upsets me and pisses me off that they are being so incredibly immature and so damn selfish, to tell me they're taking their own lives knowing how bad it hurt me when he took his. I asked her where in the hell does that leave us? The family left here that care about them. I told her they are so selfish it's ridiculous. I also told her that the feeling I had about her when I was a little girl is gone. And it'll never come back. And that it's gone for my sister too, because of how she has treated her. I told her I love her dearly, but I will not put up with this nonsense. I told her the exact reasons I quit talking to a lot of the family for so long. I told her it's because all of them are nuts and I don't want to deal with it. I told her everything. And damnit I stuck up for my little sister. I told her to get the hell off her back, that her life is none of my grandma's business. My grandma was not mad at me. She told me I'm a very smart woman. She told me she loved me and we got off the phone.

I can't help my sister. I don't have the money to help her financially. I am pushing her to get out on her own. She can't come stay with me. I don't want the drama to follow her. I told her if she needs a place for a night she can always stay with me(but honestly she has 2 cats and my cat hates other cats...believe me it's not heartless, she feels the same way). I've tried to protect my sister since she was born, literally. I used to hide her when my dad and step mom were fighting. I tried to teach her how to handle my dad. I don't know what else I can do for her. She has to take it from here.

My husband and I have okay times. Right now is not one of them. I'm feeling more and more distant from him. I'm still feeling like maybe I made the wrong choice, and shouldn't have gotten married just because we had Hailey. He's not there for me emotionally and yet he still expects sex. I work all day. I clean house and take care of Hailey all night. I'm tired at the end of the day. I don't get a break. He has his good moments, where he'll do the dishes or something like that. But mostly he still doesn't help out around the house. He does do more with Hailey now. That's definitely improved. But I still feel like he doesn't care to do anything with me. I feel like I bore him to death. Tonight I thought we had plans to go see a movie. He called me today after lunch and said his friends might be coming into town and they were going to go see a movie--not the one we'd planned on. He tried to say he was calling to see if I wanted to go...but it just hurt my feelings because I thought WE already had plans. Don't get me wrong. He doesnt do stuff with his friends all the time, he doesn't go out and drink and party. But I feel like he has so much more fun with them. We never do anything together. We don't talk on the phone because he doesn't like to talk to me on the phone. Lately I've told him flat out I don't need him. I'm just fine relying on myself. When we're doing good, things are great. When he's being a butt, I pull away. I don't know what this all means. It's really confusing.

I talked to my mom last night about everything that had happened. She sympathized with the grandma drama...she always stayed away from her for this reason. I also finally admitted to her that I've always felt a sense of urgency with my life...even when I was really little. I told her I felt nutty for feeling like that, but I've always felt that I needed to get a move on and get things done. I told her that's why I always get so upset when somebody tells me to be patient, that I have plenty of time to buy a house/have more kids/get a different job etc. I told her I don't feel like I have plenty of time and that scares me. She thinks it's just because I know how fragile life is because I've known loss from a very young age. My grandpa dying when I was 5 really affected me. And since then people I love just keep dying. My sister has tried to kill herself twice. My brother tried once. People I know have died in car wrecks just like that. One girl had a 6 month old little boy at home. It just affects me. The problem is, my husband isn't like this. He feels like he's got all the time in the world. So that just adds to our issues. And I told my mom this just isn't how I wanted my life to turn out. I always said growing up I wouldn't repeat her mistakes, and here I am married to a guy that's possibly not right for me, no house, no money, in a job I don't really love. And it's stressful because I want Hailey's life to be different. If mine can't be, hers HAS to be. I wanted my kids to grow up in a house we owned, with a mom and a dad, not having to worry about money. How can I do that for her without bettering my life too? So I feel like I'm failing her as well. Life is so complicated.

I ate lunch with my friend today. I asked her an hour before hand if she still wanted to go. She said yes. I get there and she said she doesn't feel well and is in a bad mood. ???? I had given her the option to back out... and every time I'm around her I get the feeling she doesn't truly enjoy my company. Maybe she's just doing it to make me happy or to keep the friendship going. Today we talked just fine, but then we left and outside I was literally in the middle of a sentence about something and she reached over and hugged me and walked off. Just like that. I yelled after her "BYE!" Why doesn't EVERYBODY just shit in my cornflakes today???

So there you have it. I'm fine financially now. That's awesome. But now my dad is threatening to kill himself, my grandma is threatening to kill my step sister and then kill herself, my sister is getting depressed because she can't get away from it all and I can't help her, my husband is feeling more like a horrible teenage son than a husband and then my good friend blows me off. Seriously. What else? What next? Even typing this all out I feel so silly. Like I shouldn't be upset. I feel stupid. My family is nuts, and it's so incredibly embarrassing. I'm not like them, and it's so frustrating that I can't get them to change or see how ridiculous they are being. I'm just staying out of it. From now on if something is brought up I'm telling them if they'd like to talk about other things I will, but nothing dramatic. I'm just done. And as for my marriage. I don't know what to do. I hate the ups and downs...I hate getting my hopes up and then him reverting back to his old ways. I'm sick of waiting for him to grow up. But he is my husband, and I don't take marriage lightly. I have to just keep trying to work on it. And ignore everything else.

Just getting this all out actually helped cheer me up a bit. I still with I knew how to get the issues to go away...but at least I'm not going to let it ruin my day.

**UPDATE**
Oh my goodness. I can totally laugh. After I got done with this post I got called into my bosses office by my boss and hers! They wanted to address how I get here to work minutes late every day. Luckily, I really like my boss and we get along great. And her and her boss are friends because my boss's husband is his best friend...and I really like this guy too. And they were really nice about it. They asked me what they could do to help. I told them it had been stressing me out so bad every morning, and I had been trying to work on it and hadn't been very effective obviously. They were like oh no don't be stressed about it, it's not THAT big of a deal, we just don't want you to get in trouble if it keeps happening. They genuinely wanted to know how they could help. They even went so far as to say "Do you want us to call and wake you up every morning?" LOL If only it were that easy...I told my boss she needed her husband to have a heart to heart with mine and whip his butt into shape. I wanted to say "help me figure out how to fix my life!!!!" but yea of course that would have been very inappropriate. We talked about kids, since my boss's son is Hailey's age, and her boss doesn't have kids...we talked about driving(how did we get on this subject??) and when we took our driver's tests and what we passed with etc. SIGH...thank God my job is okay, thank God I enjoy some of the people I work with. If only that would relay into the rest of my life. Now please, let this be the end of the stress for today. Seriously. Come on. Give a girl a break.