butterfly

yesterday was a bit of a challenge for me...
when i get frustrated, i shut down. i stop talking.
i got frustrated with my dad on monday night and it carried over to yesterday...

i love to help everyone. tom thinks it's a disease...they way i can't say no. i never mind helping anyone.
i understand that my dad is used to people doing everything for him because it's their job. this is not my job. we started helping because we wanted to...and now, i don't know...
if someone helps you, you say thank you or you show appreciation. i am starting to feel like my dad is not wired that way.

i walked in from work on monday evening, started dinner as always. i was not five minutes into it, when dad came in and stared at me...then proceeded to tell me that he owes medicare $8,000!!!! i looked at him and didn't know what to say, so he went to get his mail to "prove" to me that he really owed it. Of course, it was a statement of benefits...and sadly, he STILL doesn't understand how to read them....

i was sitting at the table around 9:30....dad walks into the dining room to tell me some teacher called while i was at work. he didn't know which teacher or which kid it was for and he just remembered to tell me... i got up, walked to our room and slammed the door. i didn't know what to say. it would have been different if that was the first time, but i've have at least five phone messages that i don't know about until they call my cell. so, a word to the wise, if you need one of us, please call our cell phones!

so, it was no surprise on my day off, as i was knocking things off of my list rather quickly, that my dad would say, we need to meet my friend in 10 minutes at my house. i didn't know what to say...
my anger just continued to build. we walked through the house. they talked about how they could really make some money if they had more time, as they were gawking at a grill from the 1970's...
jack was starting to get frustrated and hungry. i was almost ready to explode.
we walked outside; i was standing at the bottom of the stairs when i saw it... a yellow butterfly. butterflies remind me so much of my mom. and this particular one kept following me.
and it was okay...everything was okay. i took a deep breath and we left.
in the car, dad said thank you... a first since he moved in!

if i ever act like this to sam, louie or jack when i'm old...someone, anyone, please knock some sense into me!