It's Probably Time to Give Up

My troubled daughter blew me off again yesterday at our appointed phone meeting time. I prepared myself for her doing it yet again, and I was right, but I didn’t think it would affect me so deeply. I left a voicemail asking for a call back, even though she didn’t really deserve one, but something nagged at me from deep inside that told me she’ll listen to my voice and be moved. For a second, I worried that something could be wrong, so I checked my cell records like a forensic investigator. Well, she had been texting all day, just not with me.

I thought maybe I would be content just knowing she’s alive, but I still felt plain, old sad. My heart is still invested in this child, even though she has shattered it a million times in a million ways. Why have I been taking it, hoping that this will be the year things change, accepting things I wouldn’t accept from anyone else?

This time, though, I reached out. This is new for me. I reached out to my social media pals, to my sister, to my husband, and to my other daughter. It helps to talk about it, sort out the confusion, and work out the self-questioning.

My older daughter shed some interesting light on the subject, which is helping me possibly move toward giving up. We were actually talking about her applying for a great job, and I was helping her edit her resume and cover letter, making sure she played up the fact that she has a master’s degree from Cornell now (amazing and wonderful, isn’t it?). She heard something dim in my voice and questioned me, so I told her that her sister is frustrating me. She asked what happened, but first I asked when she’d last heard from her little sister. “Today, why?” Wow, that was interesting.

I explained the last few weeks, the last few phone calls, the change of plans, the foolish ideas, and my reaction to it all. I was calm with the foolish daughter, just honest. I told her I’d speak to her as an adult and it was OK for her to do the same. In one conversation (about my health issues), she even cried.

Apparently, she told a different story to her sister. According to her, I yelled at her, berated her and her boyfriend, insisted he buy her a house, and the list goes on. None of that happened, like, none. My older daughter knows me and believes I spoke calmly to her sister.

My older daughter is very perceptive and intelligent, and helped me make an educated assessment of her sister. She’s embarrassed about where she is in life, and justifies it by blaming other people for wronging her. So she’s ashamed and angry at the same time, which sets it up for her to alienate herself further and further from anyone who ever cared about her, especially her family. When she meets new people, she paints herself as a victim and falls deeper into an angry, lonely, sad world. She doesn’t get mental help; she doesn’t take care of her body by going to the doctor, dentist, or optometrist; she doesn’t exercise or eat well; she takes dead-end jobs and stays poor; and, above all, she continues to smoke cigarettes and pot, drink alcohol, and possibly take other drugs, to self-medicate. She makes all these choices despite knowing the consequences.

That being the case, why would I want to be around a person like that? My husband came home and I used him as a sounding board and shoulder to lean on (because I’ve gotten better at doing that), and it almost feels good to say out loud that I don’t need this shit in my life anymore. I’m 55 years old, and all these years and all the trying has taken a toll on my energy and outlook. I don’t have time to keep on this path, this hamster wheel existence. I will resist taking shit from her, hoping for the impossible, and accepting the unacceptable.