I'm 12 hours away from going to see my mother. Everything is wrong in her house and she's not willing to even try to do anything for herself. She would much rather sit surrounded by walls of resentment and fume at the world for the indignities of old age she's experiencing.
She doesn't know I'm coming. That's going to be sprung on her at the last minute. I'm not staying at her house. Instead, I booked an Airbnb for two weeks where I can have my own space, some quiet at the end of the day, and complete control of the television. Also, I am way too fucking old to sleep on a futon.
I'm dreading this trip. There's a knot in my stomach. We need to have some hard conversations that my brothers, being too chickenshit to talk to her themselves, have pushed me forward to navigate. That's grossly unfair, but typical of adult siblings with an elderly parent. The sons walk on water, the daughters wipe up shit.
My own health is in decline. I don't have the compassion bandwidth to manage the life of a person who would rather wallow in a victim narrative than show any gratitude for living into old age and having ample help to facilitate day-to-day comfort.
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