Every time I start tolerating and getting used to my sister, she manages to throw another wrench into the mix which brings me back to disliking her again. Since my dad isn't able to do much around the house since his hip replacement I fill in where I can, but we need three new ceiling fans hung. This is outside my expertise since it involves hooking up electricity to them which I do not mess with, ever. So I casually mentioned over dinner that if mom hasn't asked the local handyman, I would look at hiring someone from Fiverr to do it.

My sister recoils like she's been shot and goes hysterical that "no one can come into the house for at least a couple of months and that's not acceptable, [she'll] do it herself and we can't put her in danger." Um, what? I know she's freaked out about the monkeypox outbreak, but considering a) we live 2 hours from NYC where there are only two cases b) we are just hiring someone to do needed work and c) she's afraid to even get up on a ladder, let alone touch anything potentially actually dangerous like live wires, the chance of her actually doing it is zero, hiring someone else is a safe and practical choice. I said that this isn't like Covid, this is a known disease with a low transmission rate, low-ish mortality rate, and existent vaccine. She states that if she got moneypox and had facial scars she'd rather be dead.

That's what really stopped me in my tracks. I've dealt with her hypochondria for decades, but lately she's on an anti-aging kick including teeth whitening, facial peels, etc so the danger to her isn't that another virus/pandemic is possibly arriving. It's that she might be disfigured or scarred and that would be such a blow in her mind that she would rather die than live. As someone who's intermittently suicidal, I've had a lot of times and reasons why I wanted to off myself, but my physical appearance has been a negligible part of them. Scars are things you learn to live with - it's pretty much their defining characteristic - and she's never really had to truly deal with anything like that in her life.

And as always with her, it comes back to her selfishness. It's not about the fact that my dad is really too old and physically unable to do these kinds of tasks anymore, or that the house she lives in without contributing or paying rent needs some money spent to hire someone to take care of it. It's about her, and what she wants, and her need to maintain a "safe" world where no one possibly contaminated with this horrible disfiguring disease could come in contact with her is the paramount concern. Never mind the reality of the situation, her doomscrolling has reinforced her paranoia and now we're in the wrong for daring to put her in jeopardy by hiring someone unknown who could have been having orgies the weekend before with monkeypox-infected people.

So I'm done with her again for a while. I basically just stopped talking to her after that, and didn't bring up the conversation with my mom since she has always enabled my sister's inability to deal with the world. My dad just doesn't get into it any more and bringing it up with him just gives him an opportunity to place the blame on mom being an anxious mother, so whatever. 

I have no sympathy left to give to her or for her. But I will keep on my mom about hiring the local guy to do the work.

I am officially 200 pounds now for the first time in my life. It's a little scary, to be honest, since I have never been a large girl, but between aging, stress, and sedentary lifestyle I've finally hit the magic number where I look at it and go "holy shit." I know that a lot of it is from eating my feelings - living here is defeating from an adult perspective, and the constant yelling between my parents makes me anxious even though I don't get involved. The constant close quarters and micromanagement of my every day activities is also very anxiety-inducing as I never feel like I have privacy. I'm trying to keep calm and carry on but it's definitely shown in my diet. I can't get pleasure in life many other ways right now so food is the easiest and tastiest option.

There has been some progress in terms of my weight at least stabilizing, and the weather is getting nicer so if I have the energy and inclination I can always go for a walk in the mornings before I start work even though I know me. That's the last thing I want to do since I'm just not functional in the mornings, but I'm going to have to try. I really need to get out of here more often anyway since my patience is definitely fraying with the living situation. I will pay more than I want to, but god I hope it will be worth it. Something's definitely got to change.

And I made it, I am officially one year older today. We had lunch outside at my favorite seafood restaurant around here before I had to be back for work, and my mom picked up a cake on the way back from dad's physical therapy appointment so it felt like a real birthday. Having ascertained that 42 is not the answer to life, the universe, and everything it's time to try getting a more functional life at 43.

All of last weekend was spent celebrating Mother's Day (indoors since the weather was flat out nasty), and mom deserved it because of how hard taking care of my dad has been. Not how hard she has made it in her own mind, since she acts like it's the biggest imposition and he's the worst patient ever, but that it is a difficult task to help someone recover from a hernia surgery and then a subsequent hip replacement seven weeks later. She's kept him fed, using his walker and now his cane, and ceded the bathroom to him while she uses ours, and with me working full time and my sister not being here for most of that time the burden did fall mostly on her.

I'm not downplaying what my dad has been through either, since recovering from major surgery is a painful and long process and it's frustrating to barely be able to do the smallest things like getting to the bathroom, as I well know. He'll get his weekend on Father's Day to celebrate his recovery, but last weekend we had a lovely dinner at the Smithfield Inn, laughing and joking since the power went out a third of the way through our meal, and making the best of the weather and Mother's Day. It reminded me that we can be a functional family when we let go of our neuroses and just enjoy each others' company.

I'm hoping to get some sleep this weekend, make gravy on Sunday, and plan for my birthday brunch next Saturday in North Jersey since my aunt really isn't a good enough driver to come this far south anymore and I do want to celebrate with her as well. I need to accomplish more than just relaxing since I have to start working on a life outside of work and family. Two of three pieces are in place at least.

Logically I know that it's May. The calendar says so, after all. Maybe it's because the weather has been conspiring to stay cool, with only a few days topping 70 so far, or maybe it's because I have so much less time for hobbies now that I've been working, and directly after work I'm relegated to the back bedroom for the remainder of my night. I feel like March, April, and now May have been a personal holding pattern.

Don't get me wrong, on the job front it's been BUSY between onboarding, learning new databases, and handling the night shift alone starting in April. But I feel like personally I'm accomplishing so much less, particularly with my sewing. I was spoiled before, being able to devote so much time to something that I love and that brings me into a sort of zen state and I miss that. Any time I would spend learning new baking techniques has also been put on indefinite hold.

I'll be turning 43 in two weeks and it is absolutely time to start lining things up in terms of deciding which apartment complex I want to go to. I want to set up an appointment and physically tour the apartments of the top 3 contenders, and while I know what they're listing in terms of rental rates, make sure that it will be worth the money. I also need to figure out what I will be doing in terms of getting a car since I don't want to take my old one back from my parents unless they're ready to replace it. 

Mother's Day comes first, and some doctor appointments I have lined up, but I'll shoot for June to look at cars and apartments, so I should be ready to move by July at the earliest, probably August or September in the most realistic case. I may be missing free time but I need to start organizing the little I have much better.