Feelings Schmeelings

There are many many days where the dialogue in my head does not match the dialogue that comes out of my mouth. There are days where that's okay, and there are day when it's not.

Caring for someone who is ill, is very emotionally intensive. For both the patient and the caretaker. The patient feels useless, feels like they should be doing more, and the caretaker often feels overwhelmed.

Frustration is a word I often use. I feel it best describes how I feel without having to get into the nitty gritty details. And even more often it isn't enough.

Trapped, I hate to use that word as well. But I do feel trapped. I want to go back to school, I even have a majority of my previous school loan paid off enough in to apply for more financial aid and go back full time if I wanted. Which I do. However, my proverbial plate is only so big and I have to give something up to do so.

I have work, which is full-time, in a place that understands if I have to take off to take care of my father. I've encountered other employers who weren't so understanding. Considering it is my main source of income, and I do have my fair share of bills, I don't feel comfortable with just using loan money to get by.

I have taking care of my father. First and foremost, I am here to take care of my father of my own freewill, if not my sense of responsibility. I see my mother struggling with taking care of him, because that in itself is a full-time job along with the full-time job she has as a lunch lady. My parents don't bring in enough to survive without the income from her job, so she has to work it. My father can, at best, be on his own for a couple of hours before problems set it, real or (for lack of a better word) imaginary.

While I don't have to be the one to take care of my father, neither one of my siblings have come in to pick up any of the slack. When my mother goes bowling, which league only lasts for 7 months at best, one night a week on average, one of my siblings takes my dad for the evening. But that is the extent of it.

I could pick up and leave, go to school and do the things that I've always wanted to do, but the question that remains is this, who is going to help?

That's a good question, I think. And until I have an answer to that, I will remain where I am at. Because I know full well that if something were to happen, I'd blame myself for not being there. And that's a slippery slope that I don't need to go down again.