Is This How It's Going to Be?

Is this how it's going to be when I come home from school? And things have happened that I'm not aware of and people are angry at each other, and I feel as if can't do anything because, well...I'm not a part of that anymore?

I'm still house-sitting, and I had to go home to pick up the car so I could go to work in the morning. Just as I was about to leave, my grandma called and my mom had was on the phone with her for fifteen minutes, consisting of my mom telling her things that she had obviously told her many times before. Financial stuff. My mom was exasperated as she got off the line. I might mention that my grandma is borderline Alzheimer's. And stubborn as hell. My mom's been trying to deal with her--as harsh as that may sound--since October of 2009 when my grandpa passed away. I don't think my mom's slept soundly since. Not to mention she's pretty much alone in this whole endeavor, even though she has three other siblings. She probably got roped in because she's the oldest.

But when she gets done with these phone conversations or five-hour long "trips to the grocery store" that also involve my mom balancing her checkbook and checking her septic system and taking the dog--who's just as decrepit--to the vet...and she's exhausted and frustrated and angry. And I can't do anything but sit there and listen.

And today, right before I left to go back to the house, she told me that, should she keel over in the near future, two people are two blame. "My mother and your dad," she told me.

That's another thing.

I don't know the whole story. Never want to know the whole story. They've been divorced for as long as I can remember. And it's hell. As of late, my dad is/was being a tad bit lazy with his most recent child support payment. And my mom is severely pissed at him. This happened while I was away from home. It makes me wonder what'll happen when I'm at school. My mom won't be able to ask me, I visit my dad, if he gave me a check for that month's dues. If I'll come home and she'll be angry at everyone. There'll be stories that I won't be around to hear as they happen.

That's growing up, though. Home, your house, is no longer the place where your stories originate. The stories that intervene with your life come from your workplace, your college campus. Going anywhere else and hearing stories...they aren't yours anymore. They're someone else's.