When your stepmum gives you the shits

This life is really a curious thing. How to strike the balance between striving some direction, and flowing with the current of the surrounds? To know when to hold back, and when to act.

There seems to be answers in everything. Symbolism, synchronicity everywhere. Sometimes so much so, I want to laugh out loud. But still, I don't know where it's going. Not for sure. Is this some weird trick played by my future self? Or some other entity with my good in mind? Will it be some tumultuous, long-winded story envied by the best novels, the only relief gracing it's witness, to be found at the very end?

Please have it so, and desperately, show me some end at some point. Or surely, a stopping point where I can look back and feel it's all been worth it. The most important thing for me is to find some connection I can truly trust. As much as I trust myself. Please, can you bring me that, to stay?

Because at least for now, I'm growing tired of how confused and battered life seems. Maybe, on some masochistic level, it's exciting, and normal for my trauma-stricken nervous system, but really, I'm starting to very much feel I want to settle into a love and a family life that is pure mine. Not one that's constantly questioning the impact of authorities outside of me. Not one where I'm still flailing about trying to understand my own ways of responding to the shitstorm.

I want to feel some sort of establishment of my own. Please, can you provide that? What must I need to do in order to achieve that place? Must I focus on my study? Must I continue to focus on the present, until clearer answers reveal themselves?

I have an option to return home and a place to live. But is that place right for me? Are those circumstances the right ones to give way to my next stage? The decisions before me seem monumental. So many themes of my life, all beckoning me from their own corner of this crossroads I'm sat faced with. Which do I choose? Do I choose immobility?

It all feels like I'm some fairy tale character in her own dazed world, waiting for her knight to pierce through and wake her up, whisking her away to a new reality. Am I so broken to desire this so much? Am I conditioned by a cruel society to wish for this?

I have to acknowledge, I have great access to beautiful places, and no worries with my immediate physical needs. I am relatively healthy, (but for some moderately life-altering news at the doctor's yesterday), and I've all the access to food and a comfy bed I could get. Not to mention I can get in my car and go anywhere, for long drives, to cafes... I must be grateful, and I am.

At home however, my stepmother is growing on my nerves. When I first arrived she was unwell, and this worked out for me most pleasantly. I had special time with dad, and didn't have to worry about how to respond to her presence. But quickly, she became herself again. The issue is, there's nothing overtly worthy of complaining about my stepmother. On paper she is seemingly nice, caring, charming in all the right ways. But she interrupts me, and speaks over me, and worse so - speaks for me to others. Telling them things about me that seem to be gloating but in a strange way, has me feeling very small. In fact, she tells everyone who meets me so many things about me before I even get a chance to talk to them, such that I've nothing to say to them or them me to even get started in our acquaintance. It's like I'm her little puppy.

And there's been too many times when I do get a chance to speak, and she interrupts me while telling my own story about myself. Once, I was telling an aunty a story involving my mother and myself in Germany years ago, and somehow, my step mother interrupted and started railroading the story as if it was hers. I was baffled and angry, and charged on taking the reins again. It was a bit fucked by the end as my obsession was more about taking my power back than telling the story, and I could sense in my aunty's eyes that she'd picked up on the dynamic. Seriously though - it's one thing to tell everyone everything about me while I'm standing right there (I'm thirty by the way), and another to take over a whole story I tell that was with a totally different person, in a totally different continent to her. But she does it so innocently, just the way she does everything innocently.

I tell myself it's because she's not had kids of her own, and perhaps comes from an era with particular roles assigned to persons of different generations. Perhaps she hasn't had the chance to be schooled out of it quite like a modern mother would raising a child. But regardless, it irritates the fuck out of me. Yesterday, I asked her if I could share the news of my medical results with my father myself, because I knew she'd run to him and spill it all out like it belonged to her, just as I've seen her do to him and others with anything significant related to me. She repeated how much she understood me, then continued to fuss on the subject all day, saying how she definitely wouldn't tell him a word and she was so very glad I'd be telling him myself as its serious and he would have a strong reaction etcetera etcetera etcetera. Then when he got home that evening, she greeted him and immediately told him to go and see me, following him close behind. While he chatted to me in the doorway of my bedroom, I could feel her eagerness for me to share the news so she could butt in, and it even went so far as she was standing in front of him glaring at me with wide eyes while him and I were greeting each other. I ignored her and hearing that dad had had a stressful day at work, told him that it was good he could now rest, deciding this was certainly not the moment to share my news with him. Especially so with the stepmother coaxing me like that. Would it really be on my terms in that context? I started to understand that she could agree to something on paper, but in reality, she would still maintain her behaviour of taking over, the moment after I got to say those measly first few words myself.

When dad had walked away, she trudged back into my room and said to me "you have to tell him, he deserves to know". I immediately got up and went to see dad in the kitchen and told him. Of course, she immediately started talking over me, sharing the remainder of the details. Dad was not worried the slightest about my news, despite the drama she had assured would ensue. I don't remember as it all happened so fast, but she took over the entire thing and I couldn't believe it as she had emphasised so much, all day, that she was so very happy to let me drive the conversation. She went on and on and even tried to get dad to see my new nails (which I'd gotten done in the afternoon) all within the space of a few seconds, which made me feel even more perplexed. Get-out-of-my-vibe. You r u & I M Me.

I quickly felt utterly suffocated and retreated to my room, shaking my head at being coaxed to show off my nails, leaving both standing in the kitchen in shocked silence. Usually, I would not respond this way. I would remain and appease her. After a few moments I heard stepmother comment to dad on how I didn't want drama, along with a nervous laugh. Once again talking for me, trying to excuse my behaviour. Am I a fucking doll? Am I a fucking imbecile? Am I a heathen? A demon? What is she always trying to take from me by pretending she's giving? What's she trying to cover up, distract from? What's she scared of???????

I came back out, and said I wanted to be clear, that I didn't think the medical situation was a big deal at all, the whole point was that I wanted to tell my father my own news myself, as since I'd arrived here I'd spent my time sitting listening to people talking for me, bragging about me over and over, to various new people I've been introduced to and I just want to talk for myself. Even though I know they're excited, I am tired of it. I had thought about these words all day, in-between stepmother's obsessions to me about me claiming agency over my own news. I wanted to add that I feel invisible here. I'm arranged to meet a whole new group of people every weekend and I initially thought it was their company that I grew tired of, but it wasn't that. It was that I was unable to interact with any of these people as my authentic self. I was unable to show up as my confident self, because my stepmother is pretending that I'm a chair.

I looked over to stepmother who was now at the couch and said to her 'do you understand'. She looked completely red and nodded yes. I returned to my room utterly composed, and surprised by this realisation. As the shock of what I'd just done began to set in, I realised how out of character this had just been for me. To articulate myself so fluently to other people, let alone in the context of asserting a boundary. Let alone to my stepmother. I felt their silence in the lounge and the anger rise up within me. All the things I'd been acquiescing all this time. All the effort I'd made to play nice, to get along and see the best in her. To be grateful for my circumstances here, and conscious of not showing ungratefulness. The way my power had actually been shafted from me, without me even noticing. How everything had been set up, locked in for me without me really actually agreeing to it. People insisting on things and 'giving their permission' for me to do things. I should have known from the first days of stepmother feeling better, when I told her I would go out for a drive she responded 'yes that's absolutely fine, of course you can go'. As if I was asking permission. As if she owned some threshold between me being locked at home, and free in the world. It took me a while to understand and I ended up settling on the fact that she's so caring and cautious for my safety, but lately I've been wondering how she perceives me altogether. She seems to like me - she's thinking of me, buying the things I mention I like. And of course, dad is all over how wonderfully thoughtful and kind she is with such gestures, to a point I start to feel queezy. But then, she won't let me talk. And will take all the attention from me in public, and force me to appease her stupid stories. And dad's just so relieved 'his girls' are getting along. Fooken eejit.

Before, I could regard her with empathy. But after living with her in such close quarters for seven weeks, it's been hard to separate myself from it. Especially since I've felt I'm staying here for good. Since then it's really become a prison sentence, without me directly realising. And it's sad, because I haven't been enjoying time here with my dad since. I've felt overwhelmed and hard on myself. Misunderstood and confused as to why I feel invisible everywhere I go. How I'm meeting so many people and going out doing so many things, but I still feel so lonely and miserable.

Of course, it's up to me to put up my boundaries. I'm the one with agency. I'm the only one who can change my circumstances. Thankfully, I live in times where I have real rights. As much as she might try in the past olden-times, there's no way she can keep me here or force my will in any direction. My father too. Once I realise what's actually happening, the worst has already been overcome. It's the before - the struggle, the doubt - that is the most painful. The part where I keep blaming myself for not fitting in with others, who are actually the ones using shitty behaviour. It's because they are so blindly oblivious to it that I think it must surely be me, cos I'm the one struggling to know what to do with every day I wake up to, while they - she - is bouncing around making toast and thriving off all she reap's from my sown oats.

The next day, being today, I woke feeling that something was changing in me. I was now officially resentful of the situation I was in, and there was no hiding it. In fact, I had to stop myself from the urge to actively punish my father and mostly, my stepmother. After making myself breakfast, I left swiftly for my ultrasound appointment, not having it in me to shout a faked 'goodbye!' to the household on exit. I felt so emotional, I sobbed a bit at home, I sobbed plenty on the drive over, and again in the carpark. I could feel myself cracking open, but I just needed to pull myself together enough to get the scan done, while seeming like a mildly sane human.

After the scan, I went for a two-hour drive. Half an hour in, my bladder was wishing to burst from the pre-scan litre of water I'd drank, but I wouldn't stop. I looked out over the beautiful vistas of rolling hills while listening to music on the local radio station, and felt that finally, this was the feeling I was craving to experience in this place. My place of birth. Especially so in the most recent weeks. Taking in the place in its wild beauty, and feeling the freedom of the vast open road, it was liberating.

I used half a diesel tank in one day driving around, which in this economy, made me wince. I stopped to read at a cafe for four hours before being ushered out at its close around four. I monitored the time, predicting dad and stepmum to be out around six, and continued to drive around for a couple of hours before returning home in my safe independence.

While at the cafe, I booked myself three nights in a hotel room for this weekend. I was quite sure I'd be making plans during this time to return back home too, although I wasn't quite ready to have that conversation with dad, or to settle on the idea within myself. I text dad and stepmum in our group chat that I needed some time for myself. It felt like I was betraying them, until the moment I made it final, which was when I realised it didn't matter a thing.

I thought about how I wanted to punish them both. To tell them how horrible I felt being near them, and how I just simply had to abandon them and retreat back home. But then I thought on it more, and decided this was not the best idea at this point. Maybe I could have my cake and eat it too, I thought. Because not all had been in vein to this point, although my veins were truly throbbing up to the point I made my realisation today. At the least, they have maybe helped me to turn over that hill towards my next move. I might almost be ready to go. But still, I am left wondering why I came here. It doesn't, as I currently see things, make sense for me to have had to come here, only to turn away and go back home. Could I not have found my way back home without the detour?

When I got back to dad's this evening, I stared into the photo of my late grandmother - dad's mother - whom I'd never really gotten close to during her time. I sobbed and asked her to please show me, tell me, help me see and do whatever it is I was brought here for. To help it all make sense for me.

And now, I soon will go to sleep. And I hope that those answers find me. I hope that before my time with dad is up, that some clear progress, or closure, has come about. Because as things are now, it feels like I came here to be put in a tumble dryer, only to then be spat out again, dizzy and regretful.

There's still trips I want to make before I leave here. Maybe they won't happen just yet. It feels foolish to think that far ahead, in any case. If there's one thing I've learned the past weeks, its that holding on too tightly is a ticket away from my desires. Trying to predict five steps ahead before the next one's been taken is just no mojo for me, personally. I have to let the situation unravel itself, with faith that I've got enough moxy within myself to rely on for the journey. And that there's no real mistakes, with however it goes, apart from those decisions that I force when I feel trapped in a corner. I have to remember I'm free and continue to advocate for that territory, and eventually, find a way to enjoy that place and not look over my shoulder. From there, I hope that things will make sense. For now, I'm just glad the day's done, and I've landed where I currently lay.