Getting Pushed Around

There are a lot of advantages to being single.  Some people run their whole lives to avoid being alone, but I have found that being alone and being lonely are two distinctly different statuses, and I don't run from it.  In fact, I am sometimes envied by those who are not alone but wish they could be.  Certainly, the single life is not for the faint-hearted, but clearly it does foster independence.

I've been without anyone in the house for a number of years now.  I can go to bed when I please, eat what I want when I'm hungry, watch whatever I want on TV with complete control of the remote, and can make my own messes to clean up whenever I feel like it.  And the only one around to criticize me for my failings is.....me!

Of course, there are also disadvantages to single status.  One of these that is the most difficult to conquer is the fact that, as the only single person in my family's constellation, I get pushed around a bit.  A good example of this is visiting at my daughter's.  They all know that I don't have a spouse or a pet to be my excuse to go home.  I can't say, "I need to go home because your father has a doctor's appointment" or "I can't stay because the cat is home alone".  Nope.  I have to come and go based on my desires, and that sometimes gets uncomfortable.  I'm glad I am welcome, and I'm glad they all seem to like having me there, but I'm also aware that, as Poor Richard (Benjamin Franklin) once said, "Fish and visitors smell in three days".  I don't want to stay so long that they will all breathe a sigh of relief when I depart, yet I also don't want them to think that I am unhappy being there.  Sticky wicket, it is!

Getting pushed around like this isn't the same as being taken for granted.  That's another issue entirely, and I am not so stupid as to mistake being taken for granted with my giving nature.  When I visit with family, I try to pay my way.  For example, when I go to my daughter's, she can be assured that I will do their laundry and I will cook a few meals.  I will buy some groceries and things that I want them to have.  I will run errands.  These are all things that I can still do while she and her husband do what they have to do.  (As far as I know, this has been helpful.  No one has complained to me.)  I don't do it because it has been asked of me or even expected but because that is one way I can stay and still feel good about my being there.  Who knows how long it will be before I can't even do those things anymore??  I think they are coming to terms with the fact that I want them to carry on with their lives whether I can be there or not.

Sometimes when they push for me to do things with them, I have to push back.  Often, we have gone places as a family when I chose to stay with the car rather than carry on with them.  It was my choice, based on what I am capable of doing, and they seem to be accepting of that.  Good!  (Well...except for the time that they locked me in the car while they went into a store, and when I tried to get out for some air, I set off the car alarm and didn't know how to stop it.  That was embarrassing!!)

As I consider all of this, I think of my grandson, Ryan.  He gets pushed around, too.  He is the youngest and The Boy.  He got the smallest bedroom in my house because...well...he was the smallest.  He got the bedroom in his mother's house that had no doors and no closet because his sister had to share a bedroom with her stepsister at their father's house.  And he got pushed out of his bedroom at his father's house when his step-grandfather moved in...because he was the youngest and The Boy.

Why does being The Boy have anything to do with it?  Traditionally, Ryan has been careless and inattentive to details.  He changes his underwear only when challenged to do so.  He eats like a crumb-making machine.  He doesn't care if his bed is made or his toys are put away.  And since these civilized things seem to be of little consequence to him, I believe we all have come to believe that he is oblivious to it all.  But he isn't.  He does care.  Or rather, he keeps score.

Ryan is the dreaded 'pesky little brother' to both his sister and stepsister, but he seriously gets picked on unfairly sometimes.  He is blamed for things he didn't do, punished for things he could not help, and generally left out of decisions as being irresponsible.  (And he is, to a point.)  But I have come to sympathize because he can't push back the way I can.  He has no control over his life, right or wrong, while I do.  I'm not making excuses for him.  He can be a pill at times, but who knows what is going on in his brain when that happens?  Intimate communications with him are not always possible...so all we can do is guess.  I feel for him! I get it, Ryan!

And now, my sister is being pushed around, too.  Her husband of 53 years has dementia.  He certainly isn't to the point of not functioning, but he does try to control her and the circumstances of their lives in maddening ways.  Repetitive conversations; repetitive behaviors, bordering on OCD; violent temper tantrums when things don't go his way--many times things that can't be fixed, like the number of cars on the road--all a part of his Fronto-Temporal Dementia with Primary Aphasia.  And it's getting worse.  Her life is no longer her own...or even theirs.  She can no longer enjoy an occasional cigarette or even a glass of wine without his ragging and raging that he is going to leave her/divorce her--tomorrow.  Of course, tomorrow never comes, and she knows this, but she wakes up every day not knowing what challenges she will face.  (This is one of the occasions that makes me so very grateful that I am single!)

I pray for all of the people who get pushed around in life.  Not me because I am in control of that...but for the others, like my grandson and my sister...because they aren't.  We do the best we can under the circumstances we are given!