Agitated

I know the when, where and how so I can risk opening my mouth. As of next Friday, the paperwork will be finished - on my end anyway - for me to own this house. My mother and father should follow suit shortly afterward since my father seems to fear that I will attempt to weasel out of paying a small lawyer fee. The idea that I would try to get out of paying such a small amount of money with anyone involved is silly. The idea of me trying to screw my father over such a sum is maddening. Maybe it was just the most hurtful thing he could come up with on such short notice.

To say that I am upset is to say the waters beneath Niagara Falls are turbulent. On the one hand, you have the amazingly generous act of giving us this house. When you get down to it, the price is less than free because he has put money into the place that he need not have done had he just given it to us in 2001. If you ask anyone in the know, they will tell you I say my father is too generous for his own good frequently.

His generosity isn't what's keeping me awake at 4:30 in the morning on a night when I was all but desperate for sleep. I can't shut down the turmoil inside me. Most, if not all, of us grow up wanting to please our parents more than anything. In my case, I cannot remember a time when I succeeded. He piled on the parting shots today until my hold on my temper slipped a little. I verified that he had given me all the marching orders that I needed, said goodbye and hung up on him. First, I told him that the difference between the two of us is that I would not let a little kitten starve. He agreed that he knows he's a monster (he was being sarcastic) and I wouldn't call him a monster given the opportunity.

I seem to be that little kitten to him and nothing else. Nothing about me is worthy of respect to him. I have fought battles that he has never had to face. He had his own but they call me handicapped for a reason. I fought battle after battle with one hand tied behind my back. When I was 25 and a newlywed, the other arm got tied as well. For a while, it seemed that Melissa and I would not survive despite the help of having a house to live in essentially rent free. I can hear his voice in the back of my head questioning my use of the word essentially there. He would ignore any and every simple statement that the smallest amount of money going from my pocket to his represented an effort on my part. It's been a long time since the last time that tiny payment was a struggle and then it was only because we were dealing with other bigger bills. It's been a very long time since I was dependent on him for everything. I'm no kitten or baby in a crib.

I can hear his answer to that as well. I learned to believe that they are always right and, since they disapprove of me all the time, I'm always wrong. Thank God for Melissa and her family! Melissa taught me what it was like to be loved and our family taught me what it was like to have a loving family. I'm not only allowed to take pleasure in things but they enjoy it when I do so. Showing pleasure in something around my father created a vulnerability. My pleasure could be taken away at the next point of disappointment. If it weren't taken away, it was a sign of his benevolence. Pleasure and pain were his to dispense as he decided.

Meekers the cat was a blessing to my household. She was starving, weak and utterly dependent on me. She went from fitting in one hand to the size of a small mountain lion in what seemed like a week. Obviously, it was longer than that but she was our baby. Like Clifford the Big Red Dog, we prayed that she would survive and grow when the odds seemed so long against her. I guess we forgot to pray for her to stop like the boy in the first Clifford story. One of the many running jokes is that the Meekers we know and love now snuck into the house and swallowed that kitten whole. While she grew, the rest of us were rejuvenated for a while. After all, every cat has her gifts and Meek has mastered the art of misbehaving. From the moment she was steady on her feet walking, she used that new skill to get herself into trouble.

The plan for our unplanned child was adoption. She was supposed to go into the adoption center as soon as she was weaned but the rescue organization kept changing the rules. Instead of putting our baby into a cage environment where she could get used to it and use her cuteness to hook some other sucker, the organization only let her attend special events. She handles crowds like I do except that she finds it acceptable to claw and bite. Every time we tried to get her de-dopted (our baby-talk word for adopted), she would turn into Cujo at the event. We got these frantic calls to bring this crazy beast home before she scared everyone away. Of course, she was angelic as soon as she got home. There was a method to her madness. She likes it with us and she gets along perfectly with Maddie and Pippi.

Of course, we had a bad habit in those days. When faced with an unknown expense, we would put it off indefinitely because we couldn't afford it. Our veterinarian is a very kind person who is understanding of financial difficulties and has offered us payment plans in the past. She likes to say that she wants to help but can't help unless we bring the cats to her. In this case, we put off having Meekers declawed. She's been a terror for a year longer than necessary because we failed to learn how affordable the minor surgery was. Let's move on to present day and back to the original topic.

When we learned that the deed transfer would take place next Friday, we were thrilled for many reasons but I had one extra reason. I hate the fact that my father's attitude toward us forces me to keep him out of the loop as much as possible. As soon as he was no longer our landlord, I planned to bring Meek out into the open. I hate hiding things from him and I wanted him to know what a dear Meekers is. (It had nothing to do with her reactions to strangers as a kitten where she would bite and claw desperately to escape. She's met every person to come through here and at the Residence Inn without making a single aggressive move.) It was more like when I quit smoking some time back in 97 or 98. I wanted to own up to the fact that I was lying - or merely withholding information in this case - about something and come clean.

Instead, our vet's office called his home about Meek apparently thinking she lived there. I must remember that it is not Christian to bite off someone's head over a simple honest mistake. It shouldn't be too difficult since I find it easier to forgive those who do not hold power over me and misuse it. I could not figure out why so many people seemed to think I lived in Maryland recently even if they had be confused with my dad. He lives right down the road from me. Well, he lived less than 20 minutes away before he moved without even telling me. Of all people, he should know what a grave insult that is to me. I feel like the punch line from some joke about the kid who had his parents move away while he was at school failing to tell him. Well, I guess it's funnier in context and if your own parents didn't do it to you!

I know their justification. No one has told me but they would say that I stopped bothering to keep in touch. I've got news for them. I have trouble making it through the simplest days and so initiating conversation is almost impossible for me. Add on to that the fact that my parents make me want to kill myself every time we speak, I had very little reason to hurt myself just to gain their disapproval.

This is the cusp of the greatest victory of my life to date and I cannot sleep. Lack of sleep will send me back into constant extreme pain. Normally, I spend a couple of hours per day (2-3) in extreme pain and the rest of the day is merely enough to cripple my efforts to do almost anything. Replace that 2-3 hours with 10-12 hours of wanting to scream and you have my recent life. We're going to a party tonight, a beer tasting party, and I had hoped to have at least 12 hours of sleep before that. It starts in 13 hours. I will feel okay once I'm there even if I'm groaning so loudly that all the guests can hear me. They understand me there and they like me.

My parents will never understand me. They will never attempt to understand me. Every time I give them a glimpse into how I see things, they look at me like I'm nuts. I've told all of you readers that chronic pain patients need to treat symptom management like a full-time job. I'm falling apart from my failure to manage the sleep part of my routine but it isn't my fault entirely. (Actually, it isn't my fault in the slightest degree but I have trouble managing to believe that.) I was already sick from the weather when the trauma of the massive toilet flood and ceiling collapse hit. I had things completely under control including getting the rest I needed to recover when my father got involved and fucked things up.

I went from recovering nicely to sitting on a hot plate trying to move fast enough to avoid becoming extra crispy. He dared poke fun at my plans made while flailing about in the emergency he caused. If he had made it clear that him transferring the deed to us was on the table, I wouldn't have bothered with emergency plans.

I was born a rambling man at least in conversation and conversational writing but it's time to stop. I hope to get to what the plan was, how it formed, how it changed in the face of artificial emergencies and what it is now. Let's see if Blogger will post this. *grin*