Explanations
First off, I need to address a question that I keep seeing repeated in my hits. I use Bravenet's hit counter, and one of the perks is that I can see what sorts of search engine queries are leading people here to my blog. And over and over and over again, the query has been, "What happened to Fifteen Miles?"
I touched on it very briefly in my first post here, but didn't get into any specifics, and I sort of hesitate to get specific now, also. Because when I say it out loud, it all sounds just so incredibly stupid. But I guess people do deserve an explanation, so I'll try and give one that makes sense.
My readers know that I've been struggling with writer's block. It was triggered by a sudden and unexpected change in the path I had planned for one of my characters. I'd planned to "kill him off," but ended up giving him a very emotional revelation that had the potential to open several new doors for the storyline. Doing that trashed about 6 weeks of work that I had done in advance. There was also an issue with a family emergency that added to the complications - Papaw slipped on the ice brought in by an unexpected winter storm, broke his leg, and got pneumonia. He almost died.
Even though I'm not alone in the house with him, I was definitely alone in caring for him, because I'm the woman and, according to my Dad, it's not like I do anything else all day. Nevermind the fact that I spend my days doing all the laundry, all the cleaning, cooking all of the meals, chasing after a toddler, etc. etc... because I don't get paid to do those things, I must not be busy at all during the day.
Let me preface the next part of the insider scoop by saying: I love my grandfather. I love him very, very much. He's a strong, supportive, wonderful man, and I don't want to think of my life without him. For a long time, he was my only real father figure. But I'm starting to doubt my ability to live with him.
Even in the best of health, he is horribly obnoxious. If he walks into a room and you're watching something on TV that isn't church or sports, he will loudly exclaim, "What the heck is this crap?"
If you're trying to listen to music that isn't a hymn, or was made after 1942, he will holler "Are ytou planning on listening to this noise all day long?" Even if you've only just turned it on. And if you turn it off after he complains about it, he will play the pity card. "Well, I wasn't trying to ge tyou to turn it off, I just was wondering why you like such bad music." Or television, or art, or clothes, or food. Oh God. The food.
A couple of times a week, he has lunch at the senior center. And there is apparently no cook in the world that can compare to the frozen meals they serve in that cafeteria. Every single night, I work to make a healthy meal from scratch that is something four generations are interested in eating. And every night, I clear away the table vowing to never do it again. If I put something on the table that Papaw doesn't instantly recognize, I am met with, "What the heck is that?" Doesn't matter if it's something he's had 50 times. I am then regaled with stories of how incredible lunch was at the senior center.
It's daunting. I am not in an appreciated situation. I'm not told "Good Job." Once in a blue moon, I'm told thank you, but only after hearing constant tiny tear-downs all day long. Comparisons and passive-aggressive insults. He hasn't always been this way. It's mostly been since my grandmother died 2 years ago. He isn't depressed. I'm vigilant in that. I won't let him feel useless, and I won't let him feel forgotten. But he's getting mean as time goes on. And I'm trapped here all day, every day, with no relief and no reinforcements.
Emma is embarking on the terrible twos. Every day becomes more and more of a struggle to get through with her. She frustrates easily, she's clingy, she's demanding. I love her so much, but she is constantly dancing a merry jig in spiked shoes on my very last nerve. I fight to keep sweet. Yelling at her won't fix anything, just terrify her and make her melt down even faster. So I can only have patience. And in my situation, patience is incredibly hard to come by.
I don't know anyone here in town. I rarely am able to leave the house. I don't get to have real, actual adult conversations. My only company is an eternally fussy baby and a grouchy old man who does nothing but complain, and it's taking its toll on me in a big way. I'm constantly exhausted. I feel myself withdrawing from everyone. All I ever want is to be left alone. Every request feels like a crushing burden because of the demand to be perfect. Because anything less will become yet another lecture on how much better someone else does something.
I've gained a ridiculous amount of weight since I moved in, because neither my father nor my grandfather will eat anything they consider to be "diet food." If I want things that aren't deep fried in bacon grease, drowned in gravy, and slathered in butter, I have to make two separate meals at every mealtime. Because they won't eat anything else. I've tried controlling my portions, but some on. Fat is fat, and when it's 75% of every meal you eat, there's no such thing as effective portion control. And I know that it's really nobody's fault but my own. I'm not blaming my family, it's just a case of one more thing going wrong. One more thing that I can't make work, one more failure.
I don't want to be here. I know that in the past, I've gotten kudos from my readers for stepping up to the plate and taking care of my grandfather when he needed it, but I don't feel like that's what I did. I feel like I was tricked into being here. Promises were made to me by my mother. Promises that I would have the chance to get back onto my feet before she bailed. That if I was able to find work before a certain deadline, that she would stick around and actually behave like a mother for a change and help. And I fulfilled my part of the bargain. I found work before the deadline was up, but she had already bailed. Left me. Because someone has to take care of Papaw and Dad while she goes off to Dallas to follow her latest new thing. Because, as she says, "I've got a life that I need to live."
What about my life? What about what I was promised? My mother had her chance. She's almost 60. She had her life, she made her choices, and if things didn't turn out the way she wanted, she has nobody to blame but herself. I'm still young. I shouldn't be here, filling her shoes. Doing her job. Living the life she created for herself. I have nothing. Literally. Not a stick of furniture, not even my own bed. I've been sleeping on a couch for the last 2 years. Because there isn't anyone to hold down the fort while I job hunt. Nobody to watch Emma so I can go to interviews, and no money to get her into daycare if I should get a job. I am stuck.
And when I would sit down to write my fiction, I couldn't get past all of the rage and frustration and humiliation to type anything worth reading. My writing was compounding my depression. Reading things that I had already written made me long for my own home, my own space, my own life. The life that I want to be living. The life that I deserve to be living, that I've been blocked from, again, by my mother. And I just... couldn't do it anymore.
The act of pulling up a new post screen gave me the shakes. It made me tear up. More than once I'd try to write and erupt in sobs. Sobs that had to stay silent, because if anyone heard them, I'd have to explain why I was crying, and, well... I live with men. Neither of whom care about something as trivial as feelings. Men who would tell me to suck it up, get over it, and stop acting like a pussy. And all I ever do is suck it up. I just can't do it anymore.
So, after alot of talking to myself, I decided that the only thing I could do was kill Fifteen Miles. There aren't many stressors that I can cut out of my life. I'm pretty much stuck with everything that makes me crazy, and can't do anything about it. In a final bid for sanity and control, I deleted the blog. And I don't feel bad about it. I felt like a weight had been lifted. All of the expectations of total strangers - gone! Suddenly! In a handful of mouse clicks! And then I made this blog. Because if I can't have real friends to talk to and ask for advice and help and support, I could at least have imaginary ones. I could at least have a place to vent. And this is it.
I may not be sorry about going through with deleting the blog, but I am sorry to have left you with questions and no answers. I owed you more than that. I know this is probably too little, too late, but it's all I've got to give.
I touched on it very briefly in my first post here, but didn't get into any specifics, and I sort of hesitate to get specific now, also. Because when I say it out loud, it all sounds just so incredibly stupid. But I guess people do deserve an explanation, so I'll try and give one that makes sense.
My readers know that I've been struggling with writer's block. It was triggered by a sudden and unexpected change in the path I had planned for one of my characters. I'd planned to "kill him off," but ended up giving him a very emotional revelation that had the potential to open several new doors for the storyline. Doing that trashed about 6 weeks of work that I had done in advance. There was also an issue with a family emergency that added to the complications - Papaw slipped on the ice brought in by an unexpected winter storm, broke his leg, and got pneumonia. He almost died.
Even though I'm not alone in the house with him, I was definitely alone in caring for him, because I'm the woman and, according to my Dad, it's not like I do anything else all day. Nevermind the fact that I spend my days doing all the laundry, all the cleaning, cooking all of the meals, chasing after a toddler, etc. etc... because I don't get paid to do those things, I must not be busy at all during the day.
Let me preface the next part of the insider scoop by saying: I love my grandfather. I love him very, very much. He's a strong, supportive, wonderful man, and I don't want to think of my life without him. For a long time, he was my only real father figure. But I'm starting to doubt my ability to live with him.
Even in the best of health, he is horribly obnoxious. If he walks into a room and you're watching something on TV that isn't church or sports, he will loudly exclaim, "What the heck is this crap?"
If you're trying to listen to music that isn't a hymn, or was made after 1942, he will holler "Are ytou planning on listening to this noise all day long?" Even if you've only just turned it on. And if you turn it off after he complains about it, he will play the pity card. "Well, I wasn't trying to ge tyou to turn it off, I just was wondering why you like such bad music." Or television, or art, or clothes, or food. Oh God. The food.
A couple of times a week, he has lunch at the senior center. And there is apparently no cook in the world that can compare to the frozen meals they serve in that cafeteria. Every single night, I work to make a healthy meal from scratch that is something four generations are interested in eating. And every night, I clear away the table vowing to never do it again. If I put something on the table that Papaw doesn't instantly recognize, I am met with, "What the heck is that?" Doesn't matter if it's something he's had 50 times. I am then regaled with stories of how incredible lunch was at the senior center.
It's daunting. I am not in an appreciated situation. I'm not told "Good Job." Once in a blue moon, I'm told thank you, but only after hearing constant tiny tear-downs all day long. Comparisons and passive-aggressive insults. He hasn't always been this way. It's mostly been since my grandmother died 2 years ago. He isn't depressed. I'm vigilant in that. I won't let him feel useless, and I won't let him feel forgotten. But he's getting mean as time goes on. And I'm trapped here all day, every day, with no relief and no reinforcements.
Emma is embarking on the terrible twos. Every day becomes more and more of a struggle to get through with her. She frustrates easily, she's clingy, she's demanding. I love her so much, but she is constantly dancing a merry jig in spiked shoes on my very last nerve. I fight to keep sweet. Yelling at her won't fix anything, just terrify her and make her melt down even faster. So I can only have patience. And in my situation, patience is incredibly hard to come by.
I don't know anyone here in town. I rarely am able to leave the house. I don't get to have real, actual adult conversations. My only company is an eternally fussy baby and a grouchy old man who does nothing but complain, and it's taking its toll on me in a big way. I'm constantly exhausted. I feel myself withdrawing from everyone. All I ever want is to be left alone. Every request feels like a crushing burden because of the demand to be perfect. Because anything less will become yet another lecture on how much better someone else does something.
I've gained a ridiculous amount of weight since I moved in, because neither my father nor my grandfather will eat anything they consider to be "diet food." If I want things that aren't deep fried in bacon grease, drowned in gravy, and slathered in butter, I have to make two separate meals at every mealtime. Because they won't eat anything else. I've tried controlling my portions, but some on. Fat is fat, and when it's 75% of every meal you eat, there's no such thing as effective portion control. And I know that it's really nobody's fault but my own. I'm not blaming my family, it's just a case of one more thing going wrong. One more thing that I can't make work, one more failure.
I don't want to be here. I know that in the past, I've gotten kudos from my readers for stepping up to the plate and taking care of my grandfather when he needed it, but I don't feel like that's what I did. I feel like I was tricked into being here. Promises were made to me by my mother. Promises that I would have the chance to get back onto my feet before she bailed. That if I was able to find work before a certain deadline, that she would stick around and actually behave like a mother for a change and help. And I fulfilled my part of the bargain. I found work before the deadline was up, but she had already bailed. Left me. Because someone has to take care of Papaw and Dad while she goes off to Dallas to follow her latest new thing. Because, as she says, "I've got a life that I need to live."
What about my life? What about what I was promised? My mother had her chance. She's almost 60. She had her life, she made her choices, and if things didn't turn out the way she wanted, she has nobody to blame but herself. I'm still young. I shouldn't be here, filling her shoes. Doing her job. Living the life she created for herself. I have nothing. Literally. Not a stick of furniture, not even my own bed. I've been sleeping on a couch for the last 2 years. Because there isn't anyone to hold down the fort while I job hunt. Nobody to watch Emma so I can go to interviews, and no money to get her into daycare if I should get a job. I am stuck.
And when I would sit down to write my fiction, I couldn't get past all of the rage and frustration and humiliation to type anything worth reading. My writing was compounding my depression. Reading things that I had already written made me long for my own home, my own space, my own life. The life that I want to be living. The life that I deserve to be living, that I've been blocked from, again, by my mother. And I just... couldn't do it anymore.
The act of pulling up a new post screen gave me the shakes. It made me tear up. More than once I'd try to write and erupt in sobs. Sobs that had to stay silent, because if anyone heard them, I'd have to explain why I was crying, and, well... I live with men. Neither of whom care about something as trivial as feelings. Men who would tell me to suck it up, get over it, and stop acting like a pussy. And all I ever do is suck it up. I just can't do it anymore.
So, after alot of talking to myself, I decided that the only thing I could do was kill Fifteen Miles. There aren't many stressors that I can cut out of my life. I'm pretty much stuck with everything that makes me crazy, and can't do anything about it. In a final bid for sanity and control, I deleted the blog. And I don't feel bad about it. I felt like a weight had been lifted. All of the expectations of total strangers - gone! Suddenly! In a handful of mouse clicks! And then I made this blog. Because if I can't have real friends to talk to and ask for advice and help and support, I could at least have imaginary ones. I could at least have a place to vent. And this is it.
I may not be sorry about going through with deleting the blog, but I am sorry to have left you with questions and no answers. I owed you more than that. I know this is probably too little, too late, but it's all I've got to give.
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