Stressssssed
May. 7th, 2016 08:31 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
cosmolinguistWhen I came back from Minnesota at Christmas, I was suddenly very aware that there were a lot of things I'd been meaning to do around the house that I had been ignoring, which I now felt I had a deadline for because I knew my parents were visiting late spring/early summer.
They get here on Wednesday. I've done precisely none of those things: didn't even get a quote for the front garden getting sorted out, didn't do much about the downstairs redecorating I want, didn't plant anything outside (though to be fair there was snow outside a week ago...), didn't do the million little DIY jobs or hang pictures or anything. Hell I haven't even been able to get rid of the broken computer or vacuum cleaner (though those are more recent problems as they only broke in the last month or so!).
Slightly more importantly, I haven't sorted out a better bed for my parents to sleep in: our spare room is tiny so the bed in there is tiny (not quite a normal double-bed size), and it's pretty unfair to ask old people (especially one very tall and one with a lot of health problems) to sleep on for ten days.
I'm so disappointed in myself, even angry with myself. Andrew can tell me all he wants (and he's had to; I've had more than one little meltdown about this, most spectacularly two weeks ago in the middle of the night when I couldn't stop thinking about all this stuff and then I couldn't stop crying...) that I've been busy and ill and had to do all the things he's not been doing because he's been ill...but it doesn't make me feel any less angry or upset or stressed. I can tell myself, and others can tell me, that it shouldn't matter what state my house is in, that it should just be nice to have my parents here and that's what matters...but they've never been here with so few plans before, so little to do but comment on my house.
Which I've always felt self-conscious about around them because I know they don't like the very concept of terraced houses and would never live this way. And while I know they had apartments and ilttle places to live when they were first married, too, that was a hell of a long time ago, and anyway by the time they were my age they had two kids and lived in the house they do now, which is big and sprawling and very nice (though my mom did take a long time to get rid of the seventies-colored avacado-and-brown everything in that house, so maybe she will understand about why the terrible wallpaper is still here!).
We have no plans partly because they were landed with a huge medical bill for my mom's latest terrifying health crisis a couple of months ago, yay America the greatest country in the world. So now they don't really have a lot to spend here, and the trip back to Scotland we were talking about isn't gonna happen. I'd love to pay for such things myself but of course with me already freaking out about all the home improvements we can't afford that's clearly not possible!
And they've already talked about how they want to "help out around the house." My dad's still talking about the hedge which was overgrown when they were last here but has been gone for a long time since (though trying to tear out its horrible roots is why our front garden is a pit of gravel and mud now (I don't understand the appeal of gravel in a garden!). My mom wanted the measurements for my front window so she could buy me curtains. In Minnesota! And bring them here! So not only would they stupidly take up space and weight in her suitcase (which is always crammed), she didn't show any indication of asking me what color or kind I wanted, so I probably wouldn't want them any more than the ones I have there now. And they're a bit difficult anyway because the curtain rod is a bit broken...so my dad's OCD attempts to get the two curtains to close Right In The Middle led to a bunch of the curtain hooks popping off...because another problem with this curtain rail is you can't put proper rings on it, only shitty little plastic hooks that never stay on and keep breaking, and...
...this is the kind of thing that's going on in my brain all the time. I feel so much of it is out of my control. So many of my problems are nothing I can do anything about in the few days remaining before they get here, I feel lack in skills and money and time and transport -- having a car would really help! And I just want to curl up in a ball and ignore the whole thing.
But that's what I've been doing all along; that's the problem.
They get here on Wednesday. I've done precisely none of those things: didn't even get a quote for the front garden getting sorted out, didn't do much about the downstairs redecorating I want, didn't plant anything outside (though to be fair there was snow outside a week ago...), didn't do the million little DIY jobs or hang pictures or anything. Hell I haven't even been able to get rid of the broken computer or vacuum cleaner (though those are more recent problems as they only broke in the last month or so!).
Slightly more importantly, I haven't sorted out a better bed for my parents to sleep in: our spare room is tiny so the bed in there is tiny (not quite a normal double-bed size), and it's pretty unfair to ask old people (especially one very tall and one with a lot of health problems) to sleep on for ten days.
I'm so disappointed in myself, even angry with myself. Andrew can tell me all he wants (and he's had to; I've had more than one little meltdown about this, most spectacularly two weeks ago in the middle of the night when I couldn't stop thinking about all this stuff and then I couldn't stop crying...) that I've been busy and ill and had to do all the things he's not been doing because he's been ill...but it doesn't make me feel any less angry or upset or stressed. I can tell myself, and others can tell me, that it shouldn't matter what state my house is in, that it should just be nice to have my parents here and that's what matters...but they've never been here with so few plans before, so little to do but comment on my house.
Which I've always felt self-conscious about around them because I know they don't like the very concept of terraced houses and would never live this way. And while I know they had apartments and ilttle places to live when they were first married, too, that was a hell of a long time ago, and anyway by the time they were my age they had two kids and lived in the house they do now, which is big and sprawling and very nice (though my mom did take a long time to get rid of the seventies-colored avacado-and-brown everything in that house, so maybe she will understand about why the terrible wallpaper is still here!).
We have no plans partly because they were landed with a huge medical bill for my mom's latest terrifying health crisis a couple of months ago, yay America the greatest country in the world. So now they don't really have a lot to spend here, and the trip back to Scotland we were talking about isn't gonna happen. I'd love to pay for such things myself but of course with me already freaking out about all the home improvements we can't afford that's clearly not possible!
And they've already talked about how they want to "help out around the house." My dad's still talking about the hedge which was overgrown when they were last here but has been gone for a long time since (though trying to tear out its horrible roots is why our front garden is a pit of gravel and mud now (I don't understand the appeal of gravel in a garden!). My mom wanted the measurements for my front window so she could buy me curtains. In Minnesota! And bring them here! So not only would they stupidly take up space and weight in her suitcase (which is always crammed), she didn't show any indication of asking me what color or kind I wanted, so I probably wouldn't want them any more than the ones I have there now. And they're a bit difficult anyway because the curtain rod is a bit broken...so my dad's OCD attempts to get the two curtains to close Right In The Middle led to a bunch of the curtain hooks popping off...because another problem with this curtain rail is you can't put proper rings on it, only shitty little plastic hooks that never stay on and keep breaking, and...
...this is the kind of thing that's going on in my brain all the time. I feel so much of it is out of my control. So many of my problems are nothing I can do anything about in the few days remaining before they get here, I feel lack in skills and money and time and transport -- having a car would really help! And I just want to curl up in a ball and ignore the whole thing.
But that's what I've been doing all along; that's the problem.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-07 08:39 am (UTC)I'm sorry, that sounds really stressful.
And the way physical illness/fatigue and anxiety interact makes it even worse. :(
(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-07 08:43 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-08 03:14 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-07 08:53 am (UTC)And - I know how you feel, because that was exactly how I felt about my house before the fire. I was almost terrified of visitors.
Given that you have so little time, I would make a list of what you can do (can you enlist getting help to get rid of the computer and vacuum cleaner) and then embrace their offers of help with the house and garden. Make it like a project. They may not be very impressed with you, but they will go home feeling as though they have helped, and that will be the best feeling, given that they can't afford much in the way of sight-seeing, etc.
I wish I lived nearer and I could be useful!
(no subject)
Date: 2016-05-07 02:19 pm (UTC)