Father had a stent put in his artery last week. Everything's fine. I can barely stand living with him, but that was a day where I was reminded how much I would miss him if he were gone.
Ever since, even though I would miss him if he were gone, I have been reminded how I can barely stand living with him. He was told to take it easy for the next week -- he can drive and walk, but he shouldn't go up or down stairs and he shouldn't lift anything above ten or even five pounds. I thought he'd just take it easy at work. But he decided to take it real easy, as in stay home ever since the operation. Now I get the worst of both worlds: He's here whenever I'm here, and yet he's good enough to walk around, use the computer, even do some chores, so he has the strength to hound me into doing some chores. I wish he had to recuperate so much he was in his bed the whole week.
The worst of it was Friday, when I decided not to give a shit and wake up when I wanted to wake up. But, as Grandmother prodded me, I checked downstairs to see how My Father was doing. Like I thought, he was fine -- he as at the computer checking out stocks. And after going through some quotes for stocks he wants to pick but didn't buy (like he always does), he lectures me, "Either you trade stocks at 9 o'clock every morning or you can get a doctor's degree for me." For you?? Oh, you ass. I still feel burned by that insult. Hell, I even decided to cancel work so that I could rake the leaves that afternoon, thereby filling the "do some chores" requirement that at least I feel obligated to fulfill because he's around the house. So I had to look on the bright side: hearing that comment freed me from feeling sorry for him when I left to go to a Gopher women's soccer game later that evening
I don't think he's playing mindgames; his presence is making me play mindgames with myself. I constantly asking myself, What's he gonna say? What's he gonna think? Terrible way to live, of course. For example, today. He was fixing the hot water at home, so probably because of that he wasn't totally on my ass today. Still, I needed to, like, get away from him, so I used the excuse that I needed pick up his medicine (and, uh, go to the library to look at some art pieces he bought) to just fuckin' leave. I would have no reason to do that if he weren't here, but he is, so I was gone. Then after I went to the library, I was waffling between going to the mall closest to us, buying a malt at Dairy Queen during their Happy Hour and maybe buying some tea tree oil for the acne on the back of my head, or go home, do some more raking, and, maybe if Father doesn't need anything, walk on down for some coffee. I did the latter because I wanted to make sure I was home in case My Father needed anything and didn't want him yelling at me for being out doing nothing the whole afternoon. Of course, he was totally intent on fixing our hot water. He even told me a little about how difficult it was to fix it. No bullshit today; I still feel on edge because it could always be worse.
He should be back at work by the end of the week, but maybe, just maybe, he's gone starting tomorrow. I'm thinking he'll be home one more day. I'm just afraid he's going to start liking this and just up and retire.
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