There are not many things my family can do that cause me to feel blinding white hot rage. But the one sure fire way to bring me to the brink, is to deny all logic and put yourself in harms way. Again and again my mom and dad do this to me. I don’t view their lack of inaction to prepare for potential catastrophe as simply inertia… Logically I guess I do grasp that truth. But on the deepest level – forged somewhere in the bond between parent and childhood, when they make decisions like not getting out of the way of a hurricane or not preparing well in advance… it feel like they don’t care enough about ME to do so. Their apathy stings me. It makes me feel helpless and I hate that! It feels like they are abandoning me – leaving me to twist in the wind with the love I feel for them. A love that is so powerful yet inadequate to persuade them to take action. The love does me no good… it simply tightens like a noose around my neck – threatening to suck the very breath out of me and leaving my to feel like a deep vacuum cavern.

I’m not being melodramatic ya know. Remember? Here we go again.

I said to my mom last night… please… just call and make a hotel reservation. If the storm turns or you decide not to go, then you can cancel it. But at least make the reservation. She dismissed me.

This morning, I called again at 8am when I woke up to the headlines of this being the strongest storm on record. She paid a bit more attention this time… but again, she was complacent. Told me that I worry too much. They did go get gasoline and some water. We made some half hearted joke about making sure they take an axe and some neon spray paint into the attic.

Then just awhile ago I’m talking to her and I guess I feel a bit better- knowing that not everything is falling on deaf ears. They did finally make a hotel reservation. So then I brought up her medicine. She just got out of the hospital from the amputation. She’s got a PIC line with a med that is only delivered every two days. My concern is that with a cat five storm, they will run out of the medicine. She might not even be able to drive to go get it. So I suggested she ASK about it. Maybe get a week or so of the powder to mix up herself just in case. And then she acts all insulted I would even THINK she doesn’t have this covered. (She doesn’t of course, but she wants me to think she does!) She informs me that of course the hospital is going to have at least a month of this in stock. Says it like she’s all knowledgeable and authortaive. Of course she’s not getting it from the hospital she’s getting it from an IV infusion company. And really… this is all academic. Because my question? How do you know mom? Did you ask? Are you going to ask? Just please ASK!

At some point, you have to come up with ways to cope with your family in times of crisis. I need to push away this feeling of abandonment I feel when they do not try to take care of themselves. I am not the parent. I can not force them to do anything. Part of me, wants to go to the “cut them off” method. Ok… you guys are adults and you just figure out everything on your own and give me a call when you can. But then the responsible side of me thinks that I need to be a grown up and try to work through this with them. That perhaps, something will sink in. And I guess I should feel happy at least the hotel reservation was made.

My life is just one big bowl of stress lately.

Of course the buyer for the house isn’t going to sign the contract till after the hurricane. I haven’t heard from him either. And I don’t expect to. I figure if the hurricane goes through and we are lucky enough to have no damage, then perhaps I might as well go down there and try to sell it. I’ll figure that out later.

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