A March Through My Head

I've been doing a lot of thinking the last few days - never a good thing - I think I may be a contributor to global warming.

In any case, I think I've come to a few conclusions/decisions.

First of all, ever since Teresa's Redhead's brother started dating an old friend of hers... she and said old friend/new girlfriend of her Significant Other have been spending a LOT of time together. I went out there for dinner the other night and they were all out there. I felt like a third wheel the entire night. And it's not even that either one of them treated me any differently or that I don't like the brother's girlfriend. It's just that... the two couples make up this new... "thing" and I'm just not a part of it. I don't like feeling like a third wheel or a sidekick or, well, basically any of the things I was feeling Thursday night. We were supposed to do something Friday, but she never called so I decided to just go to work and cover Gidget as she didn't want to be there. She called Saturday, but only to borrow a black coat for a funeral and I didn't even get to talk to her as I was on my way to work and I had left my cell phone, charging on my bed. I tried getting a hold of her several times on Saturday, the last call going out at like 8:30pm. On Sunday, I tried again and left another message that basically said, "surprise, surprise... I've gotten your answering machine again. Give me a call back when you get around to it."

She called me back five minutes later saying, "kiss my ass!" I asked her about Saturday and she said she was "busy doing things." Uhm, okay.

So anyway, I'm just a tad bit irritated. I feel that old, comfortable, reliable, sneaker that you've had forever and absolutely love... but that are traded in for a nicer pair. And the thing is, I don't even know how to talk to her about this. Because if I do, then I'll just sound like some jealous, insecure, friend and that will just piss her off or she'll make fun of me. When in reality, my feelings are just hurt.

Yesterday, Ray showed up at my parent's house. He is a guy from Tennessee that tries wayyyyy too hard for everyone to like him. I'm reserved around people that I don't know if I don't immediately feel comfortable around them. I have to take some time to evaluate you and figure out if you're someone I would want to be friends with, etc. Well, that's the way I was with Ray at first and that just made him start trying really hard to be extra nice to me. When people do that, it makes me just pull away. Like, "uhm, dude.. get out of my face." So I've never really gotten comfortable around him or to the point that I like him - although he is a nice guy.

A nice guy trapped into a nightmare of a marriage. But the thing is, that BOTH of them - Pam and Ray - have been over at my house, bitching about each other to my parents. They will sit there and name each of their bad qualities and the things they do to annoy one another. Every other week Pam is kicking him out and they're "gettin' a dee-vorce."

Now Ray is living at our frickin' house on the air mattress in the living room. He's using my sister and I's bathroom/shower/tub. He eats ALL THE TIME and has already made a dent in the groceries my parents JUST bought and hasn't even at least offered to replace what he's taken. He's been here one day and is doing laundry and leaving the damn toilet seat up. Last night, my mom and dad cooked this big spaghetti dinner for everyone and he didn't even offer to help with the dishes. Instead, when I got out of my seat to clean up, he took over my chair, closer to the fire.

I know this sounds incredibly selfish. I know it's not the "Christian Way." But dammit! Ever since I can remember, we have taken in anyone and everyone that has needed help and done our best to help them out. And we have always supported my parents doing this - being gracious and nice to whomever our "guests" were at that point, doing the extra loads of towels in the laundry, washing the extra plates, etc. But with this one? At this time? It's irking my nerves so bad it's not even funny. I feel like he is using the problems in his marriage as an excuse to run away and get a "free ride" so to speak with people he knows are too kind and generous to turn him away.

I told my dad straight up last night that I felt like Ray needed to be a man, go home, and deal with his own problems and his own marriage. That the two of them needed to stop pushing off the responsibility of its failures onto everyone else and start acknowledging that BOTH of them make up their marriage. I told him I felt like we were giving him a place to hide, instead of a place to heal. And that while we may not be directly responsible for everything, given we don't have to listen to his problems, we still had to live with him. I told him that right now, I didn't CARE about the same piddly bullshit they put each other through every other week and I don't see why it has to be dumped in our laps. There's a big difference between a hand up and a hand out. That at this point, my ONLY concern is to reach my sister and help make her better again.

I have been really on edge and emotional the last two days. Trying to be strong and holding the tears back and it was with that last sentence that I just lost it. In between sniffling sobs, I said I know how selfish that sounds and that it's not what God would want us to do... but it's what I want to do - just focus on lifting Ashley back up.

My dad just said that if it was his daughter that needed help, strangers at his door, or friends and family - new and old - if they needed his help, they would all get it. That in his flesh, he felt the same way about Ray and Pam, but that his spirit says different and he has to think about it and go about it in a Christian manner. I know he's right, but the whole thing still pisses me off.

The surprisng part though, is that even if they did make him go home, I don't think that would make me feel any better. Which leads me to think that it's probably not as much about him as it is about my own concerns/stress about my sister. Is that really so bad?

Ugh, I don't know. I guess I'm just confused.

It's been on my mind that it's time to move again for a while now though. I'm just not very happy with where I am at. Not that I'm never happy or that I'm completely miserable or something. I just feel like it's time for me to step out, stop hiding from the world, and regain that sense of independence and self that I've slowly been losing pieces of since I moved home, going on two years now. I need to experience something new, step out of my comfort zone, make some new friends, be able to go to the theater and do the things I enjoy doing. A fresh start, a new challenge, some adventure... yes, that it sounding quite appealing right now.

Especially since we've gotten about four feet of snow in the last week and had a lot of drama to deal with. Both from things that have happened and my own feelings.

But I'm not going to be able to go anywhere until this summer, hopefully by no later than fall. I guess we'll see what happens.

And I am now done venting and in actuality, I'm feeling pretty stupid for everything I wrote - but I'm not going to delete it or simply save it as a draft.

I think I need to talk to Teresa about how I feel; regardless of how it may sound or what I think her reaction may be. I need to quit taking on the stress of my sister's actions and stay focused on just being her sister and loving her no matter what. I need to accept that Ray is here and hold on to the hope that it won't be for very long. And I need to come up with a plan on how I'm going to move. I think that would involve figuring out where I want to move to first...

Guess there's some decisions coming up on my horizon!