Florida Trip 2021—Journal Entry Part 1

 9/11/2021

Too much happened during this past week. Let me rephrase that … a lot of things have happened in these several months, but this past week has iced the cake something fierce. Just imagine a lump of super thick and chunky mashed potatoes on a not-so-fluffy cake and maybe you’ll start to get the drift of what I am alluding to.

I was just explaining to The Bestie that my brain is set up sort of like a freight boat stacked to the heavens with boxes. Each one tightly containing its own treasure, but some of the boxes could very well be married to and/or linked in some fashion to another … or even several others.

So to better exemplify my week, I shall prepare to the best of my ability, said freight boat analogy for all to see and examine.

The above is just a small and compact summary of some of the goings-on inside my head and the things that are prevalent in my existence.

Now it’s time to make this roughly make sense in the realm of what happened this week.

In order to do that I have to rewind somewhat.

In late July I received a very unsettling phone call from my mother informing me that my beloved dad had had a massive heart attack and would require a Triple Bypass Open Heart Surgery as soon as humanly possible.

The issue was that they live in the hot spot of Covid here in the states; Florida. Because of this, things at that hospitals were not in great shape and issues like my father’s were being postponed due to the lack of available surgeons and medical staff to complete the tasks. Thus, because of this, his surgery was postponed until this past Tuesday; September 7th, 2021.

I made it a point of wanting to be here for my father’s surgery so I did my due diligence and packed up … well, we were off. I am still grateful that my soul sister came with me because I would have lost my mind without her there. You’re soon to know why.

Upon my arrival, I was quickly met with a mom that was in rare form.

No, I lie. She wasn’t in rare form. She was just a much more amplified version of herself. The very same narcissistic, egocentric, scatterbrained, unstable, hyper-nervous, martyr with a victim complex as ever, only worse than ever.

Believe me when I tell you, my years away have changed me drastically—in leaps and bounds. Truly.

This whole system of her behavior really sat foul with me. Mostly because of my dad. In the days leading to his surgery my heart went out to him. It broke my heart time and time again to see him lying there with no strength to be had, being bullied by her, with barely any say-so in anything, and constantly being told what to do. Why? Because she said so. It was like she kept saying, “I’m letting him rest” but couldn’t or wouldn’t. He had no peace whatsoever in the days leading up to his surgery. And anytime someone would tell her to chill the fuck out and leave him alone or just stop altogether, she would break down crying and telling a sob story about how she can’t deal with this sacrifice.

Then whenever one would give her advice on what would be a better way to approach things, she would come back with a “Don’t tell me what to do, and I will do it like this,” then do it her way and completely fuck things up.

But dear reader, let me assure you … if this trip was anything, it was eye opening. Enormously so.

They say that when you are far away from something for long enough and you come back to it, that’s when you are able to see certain things with clarity. This couldn’t be more true in my case.

I think I will follow with a table. I feel like it might help collate my thoughts in a better fashion.

Things I Witnessed My Mom Do	Parallels I Saw	Things I Want To Do
Hyper-Focus and Talking too Fast to be Understood	I do this when I am overly stressed.	I feel as though I need to be more aware of the moments I get hyper-focused due to stress and center myself. AKA: Ease the anxiety.
Nitpick … about everything.	I don’t nitpick about everything, but I do nitpick unnecessarily sometimes.	I need to learn when to pick my battles.
The cluster-fuck of disorganization under the guise of cleanliness.	I am normally a very clean person, but I do know that I have disorganizational tendencies with some things. It drives my Bestie insane sometimes because it doesn’t make sense as the things I leave messy are the easiest things to organize.	I vowed that this will never happen again. Especially after having seen things from my Bestie’s point of view.
Pacing hurriedly but going nowhere.	I do this sometimes. It’s that feeling of “needing to do something” but there is nothing to do, it’s really just my anxiety at a fever pitch.	I need to make it a point of becoming aware that I am redundantly unreasonably pacing and just find a more productive way of calming my anxiety.
Excessively apologizing.	I used to do this too, though I have slowed down on it significantly. I’m not sure where this comes from or even why we do it, but just feeling the need to constantly apologize is not a way to live one’s life.	Keep practicing awareness on this and continue to do what I am doing.

Here is a table of things that she did the whole time we were there that made no sense to anyone but her. I’ll call this segment, “Only In Her World”.

Only In Her World

Having to have the last word NO MATTER WHAT! Period! It didn’t matter if the last word made sense within the context of the conversation, it didn’t matter if it was asinine altogether. As long as her voice was the last voice, then she won the argument. Even though there was no argument.

CONSTANTLY telling me what to do, even though I KNEW EXACTLY what I was doing. In many cases, I knew better than she did.

Complain, complain, complain … constantly do the wrong thing, get a bad reaction, and then complain some more.

Not take her medication on purpose, then complain that she wasn’t feeling well.

Drama. Like, ALL the dramatics. ABOUT EVERYTHING. ALWAYS. ALL. THE. TIME.

Get her way … cry. Not get her way … cry. Get her way some more … cry again. Cry because she could. Cry because she wasn’t getting attention the first time she cried. Cry because “Jesus”. Cry because “Not Jesus”. Cry because “the Devil”. Cry because … just because. Cry.

Emotionally manipulate everyone at all times, whenever possible and then cover it in a guise of holiness of sweetness.

Doing the most. At all times. Planning far too many things, all within the timeline that would only permit a thing or two, and then get mad about what she couldn’t do. Fun Fact: This too was something that I was guilty of (because it was a learned behavior) until I saw it in her. Now … guess what? #NotAThing.

Is my mother always right? Yes. In her opinion, it is an indubitable yes. No matter how wrong she may be. She has no concept of accepting a potential “misunderstanding” or mistake. She cannot accept her faults. Simply put, she is right, and everyone must accept this. Period. The best example is when she turns around the things I (or anyone else says, for that matter) and then swears that that is what that person said even if that was not accurate.

Petty Betty’s real name is Ana. I’ll explain. Everything I do—in my mother’s eyes—is a personal competition with her abilities and achievements. The day before my father’s surgery he asked me to make him a Cream of Rice. He hadn’t eaten properly in days. However the Cream of Rice is something that he likes the way I make it. Yes, he will eat the one she makes, but he prefers mine. I don’t know why. He just does. So he requested it. I made it for him. He scraped the plate clean. I showed mom the plate. Mostly because I was so happy that he actually ate something. Her immediate minimization was instinctive. She quipped, “Yeah, well, it wasn’t much food anyway.” That wasn’t the point but it didn’t matter. To her, it was. This is just one example of many more just like it.

The first few days I was there, I dropped into a very, very dark place. I mean, how could the family as a whole be going through such a troubling time (my father, especially) and her make the entire thing about her? How could she be that way? It was gob-stopping. Flabbergasting. Upsetting. Not to mention, beyond depressing.

Suffice it to say, that immediately after my father pulled through the surgery and made it out the other side fine, the bestie and I made up our minds. We would be heading home immediately after. That very same week. The planned 2 weeks that were to be the would-be stay, were shortened drastically due to a person that had no concept of what it is to really function as a persona, let alone a family.

So, this is Part 1 of a potentially 3 part session on my trip to Florida. If I can wrap everything up in just 2, then great. But I anticipate at least 3 entries.