The Box

I don't exactly remember how old I was when I decorated the inside of the box transforming it from being an ordinary cardboard box that housed a new refrigerator into my own little world.  My mother and father had just purchased a new refrigerator and I claimed the empty box as a playhouse.  What kid doesn't like a place to hide away? I remember the box seemed huge inside so given the length of my ever-growing, lanky legs, I couldn't have been more than 6 or 7 years old at the most. 

I worked diligently on coloring and drawing all over the inside of the box while leaving the outside deceptively plain.  I invited my friends one by one to visit me inside the box.  Everyone seemed thoroughly impressed by the wonderland I had created and they put their own mark on it as well by drawing a little something on the wall.  Because the box was too large to stay inside the house, my mother made me keep it beside the house in an area of the yard that the separated my house from my cousin's house. 

Each day I would race outside to check on my box and each day it was still there untouched.  And then it happened!  One morning I raced outside after eating breakfast and it had rained sometime in the night.  It never even entered my mind that it might rain and what rain would do to cardboard. When I tried to crawl inside the box, it collapsed on me.  It probably was a funny sight to see a huge cardboard box with a set of skinny legs sticking out of it, but I was crushed.  

My cousin, Debbie who was sitting on her stairs laughed hysterically at me.  I kept thinking that she's laughing at me because I hadn't invited her inside the box.  The longer she laughed the more it hurt my feelings. The more it hurt my feelings, the angrier I got. Finally, I accepted my refuge was gone forever and I stomped back to my house breathing fire as I went.  All I could hear was laughter resonating in my ears as my anger quietly boiled over.  When I went to shut the kitchen door, I slammed it as hard as I could. When I did that, I put my hand and arm through a pane of glass. 

I immediately had a "uh oh" moment when I looked down and saw glass all over the place.  I knew I was going to get in big trouble for it.  I hated my mother yelling and so did the whole neighborhood.  I knew this little fiasco was going to stir her wrath.  It seemed like in those days everything stirred her wrath. There was no way I'd catch a break and she'd just let me slide.  She didn't let anything slide!  Maybe a miracle would happen and  I would become deaf so I wouldn't have to hear her yell. The odd thing about it  was that I was completely oblivious to the fact that my hand and arm was bleeding from getting cut on the broken glass as I pulled my arm back through the pane of glass.  While I bled, all that seemed to concern me was having my mother yell at me, having to face my cousin, Debbie again and being embarrassed from having the whole neighborhood know what stupid thing I had done as my mother announced it to everyone. Her voice sometimes hit a fever pitch like she was yelling through a megaphone at a football game. I feared that this was going to be one of those times. 

It wasn't until my mother came running to see what all the commotion was and her bellowing, "What in hell have you done, Karen?" (an understatement, no doubt or maybe just a forecast of my misadventures that lie ahead) that I realized I had been physically hurt.  All my pain until then was emotional. She attended to my cuts first which weren't too bad before cleaning up the mess I had made. The bandages on my arm made my injuries look a lot worse than what they really were.  My wounds didn't require a trip to the doctor or stitches, but the gauze bandages that decorated my right arm was a constant reminder of what a dumbass I had been. I still invoked laughter each time I saw my cousin for days after that.  Each time she laughed at me, it hurt to be laughed at, but each time she laughed, I got a little tougher until it didn't matter anymore.  I may not have found a way to turn off my hearing, but I certainly found a way to turn my heart off so it would stop hurting.  Growing thick skin at an early age was a Godsend to me! 

THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME

I don't really know where to start this post. My thoughts are pretty jumbled right now. I think it's a combination of not feeling well and being emotionally drained, so please bear with me while I stumble through writing about my latest ordeal which of course involves some rather drama-filled family issues, but aren't all family issues drama-filled? It seems to be the nature of the beast!

About 8 years ago my mother had some sort of break with reality. It was as if aliens had swooped down and abducted the woman I had always known to be my mother and replaced her with a body double void of a mind. She was merely an empty pod for the better part of several years. Naturally, the specialist she had been sent to see quickly diagnosed her with Alzheimer’s and put her on meds to stabilize her condition and to slow down what he claimed would be a steady downward spiral. I never agreed with that diagnosis for many reasons and eventually I weaned her off the meds she had been prescribed for it. Several years later the same doctor admitted that he had been wrong and was amazed by her "recovery." With a lot of hard work and persistence I pulled my mother back from whatever abyss she had fallen into during her breakdown. I have to admit there were times I thought I was ready for a rubber room, but I hung in there and did what I thought was right regardless of what the doctors told me. Today, I'm glad to say my mother is thriving at the young age of 86. The moral to this part of my story is that sometimes you have to follow what your heart and instincts say and cast aside what science and logic dictates.

I try very hard to be a good daughter. Yes, I fall short of perfection on many levels, but there's one thing I can say with absolute certainty...my heart is always in the right place. Because we have friends and family who live in Maine, I try to take my mother there each year so she can spend time with them. As a person ages it becomes more important to be with all the people they love and for that reason I try to be accommodating to my mother's needs. This year our finances didn't allow for our annual trek "home." I felt bad about it, but if you don't have the money, you don't have the money! It's as simple as that!

In July while visiting my Aunt Nancy she asked me why my mother and I weren't going to Maine this year. After explaining to her why I felt we couldn't afford the trip this year, she made an incredibly generous offer by insisting that the three of us make the trip to Maine together and she'd pay all the expenses. Because I knew how important it is to my mother to go to Maine, I agreed to let my aunt do this for us. My aunt is like a second mother to me and after her husband died over 6 years ago, I stepped in and started doing things for her that her daughter and only living child was either unable or unwilling to do. As a result of our increased contact we formed a very close, loving bond and she became even dearer to me than she already was. She recently made the decision to move to Florida so she'd be closer to family so she wouldn't have to be alone any longer. Her decision to move was something my entire family and I was looking forward to and it was a decision she knew would make it easier for all concerned when her health problems started to worsen and she'd need help. Because I love her dearly, I was willing to be that go-to person for her.

Let me now fast forward to our vacation from HELL! The first of two indications that the month we were supposed to spend in Maine would be anything, but paradise was upon arrival I got sick and had to eventually seek medical attention because my own efforts to nurse myself back to health didn't result in me getting better...in fact, I got worse much worse. And the second key indicator of what would lie ahead was when my aunt informed me that my mother and I would have to start paying our own way the first day after we arrived in Maine. Yes, you read that last line correctly! Paying our own way is rather difficult to do when we have very limited resources and was the reason why I had decided against a Maine trip this year. Paying our own way wasn't what she had initially discussed when she insisted that the three of us take this trip together nor was it ever mentioned until we reached our destination. She had offered to pay for everything and it was only because of her generous offer that we had agreed to make the trip to Maine. After being completely blind-sided I took what little cash I had and bought groceries so we could eat while we were there. I never expected nor wanted to eat out every night so cooking our meals and dining in was no big deal to my mother and I because it's what we do every day anyway. My aunt on the other hand likes dining out and although she did eat the meals I prepared, she turned her nose up at the thought of having to eat leftovers and wanted me to cook a different meal each night. Because I was sick the thought of leftovers appealed to me because I simply was worn out and didn't feel like cooking every night. Obviously, she didn’t realize how sick I had gotten or else she just didn’t care.

What became glaringly apparent quickly was that my aunt is an extremely difficult person to please at times and she expects everything to be her way right down to what's watched on television and how loud the volume is. Nothing at all seemed to please her and she had no problem with hatefully telling us that she was not satisfied with anything about the trip and wished she hadn't come. Her obvious unhappiness about the trip made both my mother and I feel bad for agreeing to let her do this for us and we didn't know what to do to help remedy the situation and felt like we were treading on thin ice all the time especially at times when she either wouldn’t speak to us or when she did speak, she’d snap at us harshly.

Our first night in Maine my aunt had a major meltdown (crying, yelling, cussing, etc.) and I expected her to ask to be taken to an airport the next day so she could fly home, but the next morning she perked up and surprised me by continuing on with our journey. Each time she expressed negative feelings it was as if all the things that troubled her from years past had just happened 5 minutes ago. As one day slipped into the next, negative feelings seemed to be all she had and the dark cloud hanging over her seemed to darken even more. Each time we listened to her tales of woe from her troubled childhood, I reminded her that I too had grown up in the same environment so I understood how she felt. I encouraged her to let go of those feelings she had been harboring so she could be at peace. And each time she raved about what a miserable marriage she had for 50 years, she never once felt any relief that she now was free of that misery. It was as if her husband, my uncle was just in the other room and not dead for over 6 years. It was like he still had a strong grip on every aspect of her life. Each time she ranted I told her we'd support any decision she made and that we only wanted her to be happy. Ultimately, she needed to do whatever she thought was the right thing for her. I guess the right thing for her was to spread as much misery as she possibly could and use my mother and I as a whipping board for all the things that had been troubling her.

All the while as we visited with people we had wanted to see while we were in Maine, she refused to allow us to include her in any of our plans. Once when we had close family friends come to where we were staying, she went to her room and refused to come out briefly just to say hello and meet the people. Her actions caused an awkward situation for my mother and me because we were continually put in the position of having to explain why she didn't want to meet and spend time with anyone. Although she adamantly told me that "those people weren't her relatives and she didn't know them," at least half of them were relatives...she just obviously didn't feel the need to get to know them. She also didn't see why I had to explain anything to anyone regarding her or her actions. When I asked her to imagine the roles being reversed, she wasn’t able to see that if my mother and I had done the same thing while visiting her at her house, she'd be embarrassed and probably angry at our actions.

As the days slipped away I felt as if my aunt viewed my mother and I as being bought and paid for thus we were supposed to keep our mouths shut and take whatever she dished out. I guess she decided dowsing herself in Opium perfume even after being asked nicely to spray it sparingly because it has such an overpowering scent was a good way to make us suffer. Try riding in a car or sitting in a room with someone who has bathed in a strong perfume and see how long it is before you feel like you need to vomit. Try having a relaxing vacation with someone who feels the need to clean obsessively or who needs the washing machine and dryer going from morning until evening. Another punishment for us was when she constantly poured chemicals like straight bleach down the drains in the kitchen and bathroom. The caustic fumes just about ran us outside and she continued to do that even after I explained how a septic system works and how it needs bacteria in order to work properly. No matter what was said about anything, she seemed to have no regard for my mother and me and was always right about everything all the time whereas most people automatically know strong perfume or bleach fumes in small confining spaces and people don't mix well and that when travelling in groups “compromise” and “flexibility” is the key factors in having a good trip. For some reason she honestly seemed hell-bent on making our time in Maine as miserable as she possibly could on every level possible and her actions had me utterly bewildered.

At first by her actions had me confused and that confusion quickly developed into disappointment and hurt. My hurt and disappointment only developed into anger at the very end after she apparently felt no need to cut me any slack because I was sick. All the while she refused to do anything with us; she continually talked about her other two nieces, Debbie and Peggy, my cousins and constantly critiqued my brothers as being assholes for not spending any quality time with their mother or helping me with her care. She ranted and raved and called them everything but human, yet when she talked to my cousins on the phone honey would drip from her mouth as she told them she loved them and invited them to come see her. Instead of telling them how she really felt she opted to go the route of being two-faced and then take her anger and resentment of them out on my mother and I. The first week we were there my cousins didn't call her and I thought I was going to go crazy from listening to her constantly bitch about them. I finally went to see Debbie and asked her to please call our aunt because she was sitting there feeling as if no one cared about her and quite frankly she was making us miserable because of it. My cousin promised to call and for a moment I thought all had been righted in the universe and the planets were back in alignment when Debbie called my aunt and they made lunch plans. She actually smiled and I saw a glimmer of sunshine amongst all her darkness and gloom.

But then something happened...all hell broke loose and it was a like a boomerang gone wild. It came swinging back with a vengeance to blindside me with what came next. She felt that my cousins should come visit her and not the other way around even though Peggy has lung cancer and I'm sure she isn't up to making house calls and lengthy visits. All I listened to constantly was how neither Debbie nor Peggy ever comes to see her and how they never call her and that the phone and road runs both ways. She carried on about how none of them even expressed their condolences when her husband died and why should she care anything about them. Listening to her talk about them got me thinking and reality finally smacked me in the face.

Not once in the last 6 years in all the times I've ran back in forth between Florida and North Carolina to check on her, to visit her and to spend time with her so she wouldn't be so lonely and so she'd know she had people who love and care about her has she ever made a trip to see me in Florida. The road runs both ways, does it? It looks to me like the road only runs the way she wants it to run! As for the telephone working both ways, she rarely called me even though I called her at least 2 or 3 times a week unless one of my many health problems was acting up and then I'd suffer in silence because it's difficult putting on a happy face when you don't feel good. I guess the road and phone doesn't run two ways after all and it’s taken me a long time to realize that. I also have rethought how inattentive, selfish, self-absorbed and unfeeling her daughter has actually been. It really makes me wonder if all the harsh, hateful things my aunt has said about her daughter, Sharon is really accurate. It makes me wonder where the truth really lies, but that's something I'll probably never know. After the meltdown about my cousins, Debbie and Peggy she sat in her room for the next 2 days with the door closed and she refused to speak to my mother or me. After two days of sulking, I guess she got tired of being confined. The sun seemed to miraculously come out and she brightened her disposition like nothing had happened. Everything in the world was sunshine and roses. That miracle came as a result of her calling the airline and finding out how expensive it would be for her to fly home. At that point she expected my mother and I to change gears along with her and go do what she wanted to do like look at fall foliage, visit lighthouses and basically do anything that didn't involve our relatives or friends. By then my mother and I had already decided that we wanted to go home. We both had enough abuse and figured there was no salvaging this vacation. Besides, my bladder infection was so bad I could hardly stand it. I had been to an urgent care, but still wasn't feeling any better. Having diabetes, always makes getting anything so much worse!

Most people can expect to be reprimanded for being rude, but what do you do when just the opposite happens? Okay, I never claimed to be perfect and my manners probably could use some polishing, but I have to admit I was utterly astonished for being harshly reprimanded for saying "thank-you" to my aunt at appropriate times when most people would say thank you. She declared “thank you” as a forbidden response to use ever again to her and made us feel awful for being polite. All I know is that I'm just not cut out to be a whipping board especially when I'm sick. I know I should have just left it alone when she kept at me. I shouldn’t have let being sick weaken my resolve. I know I was rude and disrespectful by finally blowing up and telling her "I AM DONE!" I was wrong to tell her that she ruined our vacation and it was unnecessary to tell her that she's a miserable bitch who isn't satisfied with anything. I can admit when I'm wrong when I am wrong, but I feel justified in standing up for my mother and me after being subjected to two weeks of non-stop agony. Maybe I could have approached it in a better way and saved the relationship, but I honestly felt at that point my aunt no longer cared about me.

I believe my aunt owes my mother and me a HUGE apology, but I can safely say that apology isn't something we'll ever get and that's okay. I know how stubborn my aunt is and I truly am okay with how things ended. I gave it my all, but my all wasn't good enough for her. I can accept that. Just like I can accept that in the long run it's entirely her loss and not ours. Sometimes you have to cut your losses and walk away from people you love because they’re toxic and will do nothing but bring you misery. Sure, it hurts, but time will heal the wound. Unfortunately, she decided against taking a plane home and we had n extremely unpleasant road trip back to North Carolina to drop her off. As I drove away from her house headed towards Florida it felt like the weight of the world had been lifted from my shoulders and it didn't matter that I still had 500 more miles to drive until I was home again and in my own bed so I could be sick in peace. And by the way...it took 3 more months of antibiotics and recuperation until my bladder infection was completely gone. Diabetes is a true bitch!

 

SOCIETY'S CHILD

So many things factor into forming who we are and how we view the world around us.  As a child I was never taught to judge people by their economic status or by the color of their skin.  Racial tensions ran high during my younger years, but those tensions just didn't seem to personally touch my life.  Sure, it was something I saw on TV and read about in books and magazines, but I didn't have to live it firsthand.  I simply grew up not understanding why some people hated others for what seemed to me like no valid reason and to this day, I still have problems understanding racism and bigotry. 

Maybe I was fortunate to grow up in a place where those horrible things didn't happen very often or if they did, I never had to witness them.  Maybe I was fortunate to be able to turn off listening whenever my grandfather loudly ranted and raved about Catholics and Jews instead of taking it to heart.  I always wondered what bug had crawled up his butt when he decided the Beatles were the cause of all the world's problems and no one from New Jersey should be able to drive a car.  Okay, maybe he got that one right!  [LOL] Archie Bunker had nothing on my grandfather. Put toe to toe, I think my grandfather could have taken Archie down.  And maybe most of all, I was fortunate to develop insulation to some things I saw as being immoral, unjust and just plain crazy.  I wanted to be free to develop my own brand of crazy and to think for myself. 

As a young teenager, I saw an interracial relationship develop within the group of people I hung around.  People couldn't be in Billie (Buz as we called him then) and Debbie's presence without noticing that they truly loved each other.  Because of them, I discovered love really is blind.  The heart doesn't see the color of a person's skin no more than the heart sees the color or length of a person's hair, their height or their weight and the size of their bank account. I secretly rooted for their relationship to not only withstand the normal relationship woes, but to continue to grow and develop into lasting relationship.  What I didn't see or understand were the problems they faced behind the scenes.  Sure, their friends were able to accept their relationship, but that wasn't the case with all the people in their lives.  I don't know the details of how or why they split up, but I witnessed a certain veil of sadness as a result of it.  They both moved on, got married and lived a life without each other. 

Now, flash forward many years later to a time after Debbie's husband died from complications due to diabetes and Billie's marriage ended around the same time.  Several years ago, they both exchanged wedding vows again, but this time it was with each other and they started living a life that was all, but a faded memory from years ago.  It just goes to show you that when two people belong together, fate will make it happen.  There's a greeting card that has always stuck with me. Each time true love prevails, I think of that card.  It simply says: Somehow...Someway...Somewhere...Someday...