Pretty much all of my writing endeavors have been put on hold, which includes this blog and my professional writing covering hockey and sports in general. The obvious reason for this is, of course, my mother's death and the subsequent upheaval that comes with that. In just 29 days at the beginning of the year I went from a near 50-year old living with his mommy to a single guy with two cats, a car I can't yet drive and a house.
That's right. I am a homeowner.
Sure it's by default due to my mom's passing and the way I went about gaining ownership of the house was somewhat of a desperation move, but I now own the house I grew up in. At first, it was a house full of ghosts of my mother everywhere I turned but now, afer a couple of months I am growing fond of the place. The original plan was that I was going to move to a place of my own, meaning an apartment, and my sister and I would sell the house and split the profits but now I'm having second thoughts about it.
I have made the decision to stay here instead of moving to an apartment. I have two good reasons for changing my mind on that.
First off, this place is PAID FOR. If I stay here, I own the place, and in the 13 or so years since I last lived in an apartment rental rates have jumped $100 to as much as $300 dollars per month compared to what I paid back then, it just makes good financial sense to want to stay here as opposed to get out of here. I'm working now...something that flew right under the radar duirng mother's health crisis...and I can maintain the place and make needed improvements to the house infrastucture as needed.
The second reason is purely personal, and I'm not real proud of it.
When we got my mother's terminal diagnosis in mid-January, my sister was the one who fielded the doctor's words and instead of coming to me to tell me that mom wasn't going to live, she instead decided to get a quick and dirty will on a legal pad so that we would be forced to sell the house, split the profits and basically turn me out on the streets. I was neither consulted as to my thoughts on the issue, my sister just bum rushed my mom when she was ailing and of questionable mind in order to railroad me out of here because she couldn't handle how the house deteriorated since my dad died 16 years ago.
Initially, asfter thinking about it and a big blowup between us when mom was in hospice I was somewhat favorable to moving, but I'm not anymore. Nope. Why? In March, my sister took it upon herself to have her and her family come up from Texas to clean out the house and prepare it to be sold. That's akk well and good, but my sister and brother in law chose to trash me all the way from their front door to mine in earahot of their children, particularly my niece, and I cannot abide that.
On their first night here my niece took me aside and told me that her parents basically tore me apart the entire 8 hour trip in the car from Katy, Texas to Tulsa Oklahoma and it really bothered her. She is innocent, sweet and loving, and she didn't like hearing it. To make matters worse, she had to hear it while she was still grieving for her grandmother and it really cut me to the bone.
It was a solid kick in the nuts for me as well, and at the risk of never seeing her or her kids again, and in direct violation of my rule that I couldn't get so mad at my sister that I couldn't pull what my father's brothers did when their mother died in terms of being nasty to each other, I decided to reverse my earlier decision and stay here. I've said plenty of ugly things to her since she was born but that was the last straw
I'm a grown man and an adult. I love my sister. That crossed the line. I am sure they thought she had her headphones in and her videos and video games turned up so she had them tuned out, but she heard it. It got back to me. One thing I have ALWAYS held sacred is that I don't disparage other adults to children...ESPECIALLY when it comes to their parents. While he would never understand it, I have never spoken to my son about his mother and the divorce.
His autism grants me a pass from that, but even if he was "normal" I would only tell him of the painful parts if he asked, and even then I wouldn't put ALL of the blame on his mom. It's just wrong, and I can't abide it, like I said.
At the end of the day mom wouldn't like to have us fighting and it will be a huge emotional hit when this story breaks but I am standing firm on this. The house is salvageable, and the more I think about it, the more excited I get about transforming it into a better place to live than it is now. My sister will be so mad at me that she probably will never set foot in it, but that will be on her. The door will always be open to her and her family, and that's that. Someone has to be the bigger person, and it might s well be me.
Anyway, that's the update from the HQ. More blogs will be forthcoming, likely on this subject.
Stay tuned.
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