Posteaster

I am impatient with my foolish mother. She hasn't taken advice that would have made her life much better. She squandered her assets on ungrateful, needlessly dependent relatives. She was dishonest and sneaky with her husband, taking advantage of his trust while at the same time openly showing disrespect. Specific to me, she has habitually gone into my stored and presumably safe belongings and thrown them away, as the whim takes her. She is willful and stupid, in this regard. I resent it immensely, and it pollutes my interactions with her. I will never trust her again.

Some years ago, when I saw the direction of the economy, via her failing business, I suggested and urged her to make provisions, which she ignored. She mortgaged her house over its value and then the market collapsed. Social Security would cover the payments, what what to live on? It was almost too late when she finally relented, and let me transform two rooms of her house into a rental space. She had cashed out the last of whatever fungible assets she had, a life insurance policy I think, and was down to the last few thousand dollars. She told me how little she had left, and started to cry. I used the last of my assets to work the transformation.

She rented foolishly, fearful to delay, and the tenant was shrewd and my foolish mother was foolish, so she ended up with less rent than I had arranged. You know, behind my back. That one is gone now, and I've just done the clean up and there's a new tenant coming in, with only a week of vacancy for the place. That's good. This time I'll have my son act as a shell landlord -- take the responsibility off the foolish old woman. I'd do it, but it's the sort of thing I'm not good at. N will be.

But I'm very impatient with her. She moved my tools and threw away some screws I needed -- that sort of thing. You know, same old. So I just interrupt and get to the point when she wants to tell me the story rather than give me the information I need. I know, I'm rude, and I feel the need to apologize. She has too many tiny untrained dogs that piss all over the house, puddles in doorways, and they bark unceasingly at me, and I hate that more than I can say. I have a rage sometimes that would simply kill them. But I won't. But I don't care for it, being screamed at in an endless snarl.

Well my computer seems to have died the final death.

I realize it's small and unreasonable to have the kind of resentment I do. I care about my mother, but she's so stupid. As for my father, he is toxic. I was brooding last night about something I'd forgotten. I was 16 or so and the plumbing was bad in my bathroom so I had to take a shower in my father's. That shower was leaking into the kitchen below, and he comes up and pounds angrily on the bathroom door and shouts at me. There I am, naked actually, wondering what the problem is, as he seems to blame me for the old plumbing. What, he couldn't wait? He couldn't be polite? He couldn't let me put on a towel? He's not any different now -- just old. I don't like being around abusive people. So, no, I won't beat those dogs to death. But I have resentment.

What is to be done about it. I need to make the conscious effort to be more patient with my foolish mother. A matter of discipline, if nothing else. I suppose it doesn't have to be easy -- and of course it could be so very much harder. Maybe it would be better if the pain were from natural disasters, rather than the self-imposed kind? -- you know, from stupidity? It doesn't excuse me, but it's an explanation -- my coldness, emotional isolation. If I never saw any of them again I wouldn't really notice. I don't even know where my son lives. I know, I'm scary. It saddens me, this belief that I will grow old, very old, alone. At this point I don't see how I can have another family. Need a woman for that, and I don't know any candidates.

And frankly I don't really like people very much.

Just wanted to get that off my chest. Send me a computer.

J