Sunday, November 13, 2005
Rebekah and Phillip (a boy with whom I work) suspect I have bronchitis. I believe they are correct, which means I must find time to set a doctor's appointment somewhere. This entire semester has been too congested with school and work for extras.
Rebekah took me out to a deli for a delightful sandwich lunch, then I took her out for frozen custard. We hadn't seen each other in a couple of months, for we both work around school and go to school around work, with nothing between but studying for school or recovering from work. We discussed our dismal futures, which will consist of more work and more school and less time for ourselves.
After she inquired when I had last spoken with The Father (August), I informed her I would not initiate anymore contact with him. Dealing with his antics stresses me out. I had an anxiety dream concerning him even last week. I apparently do not possess the requisite fortitude to wait for him to become a grown up, especially while I am struggling to do so myself. I do not have the patience for his lies, for his misinterpretation/reinterpretation of my motives, for his ridiculous accusations that I do not love him or that I do not love my siblings, for his insinuations that I am trying to destroy the family...
He's the one who is too stupid to know what love is. He tells me I'm depressed, and in the next breath tells me he doesn't care about my feelings, tells me he only drove me ten hours to Tech so that he could be rid of me, and several other little things he can think of to make me feel worse about myself. He told me that the aunt and uncle (Nick and Laura) with whom I lived in St. Louis didn't want me living with them anymore because I'm a horrible person. According to him, my aunt Debbie and uncle Larry didn't co-sign on a school loan application for me because I am "a mean and nasty person", not because they already have their own two sons and couldn't afford to take on another liability, which is, of course, the real reason.
I won't return to The House of Usher for Thanksgiving, Christmas, or any other reason, because a) I can't afford to b) I've never been welcome there, and making me stay with them over the summer was simply a pretense for The Father and Terri to maintain a facade of "normalcy", whatever their twisted conceptualization of that was supposed to be and c) I wouldn't break bread with them even if it didn't cost me anything to go down there. The last time I talked to him, The Father accused me of not buying Terri a Christmas present, as a sign of open antagonism. She was sitting right there and had to correct him, because I had gotten her something. But he was still fuming about something that never happened, over a year later. He accused me of not wanting to come down from Missouri to be at their wedding, over a year after the fact, even when he knew I had wanted to come, but did not because I was in school and also had to work all that week.
I would have to deal with this sort of nonsense at every visit and every phone call, if The Father has his way.
[Lauree Frances Keith concluded this diatribe at 12:33 PM]