Might Be Getting Crazy, Might Be Wise...

It's official.

My mother has lost it.

We've spent the last two weeks touring houses, searching MLS listings, speaking tirelessly about real estate and the pros/cons of eat in kitchens and she hasn't found one single redeeming quality in one single house we've looked at. It's because she's not mentally ready to sell her house and move and retire and all that, but she needs to get mentally ready or she's going to drive me bat shit insane.

I feel for her. I really, REALLY do. I can't imagine what it's like to have to sell the house you built, the house you brought your children home to and raised them in. She's extremely attached to her things (and as evidence of such, she hasn't actually changed any decor in the house since 1968) and she doesn't actually WANT to do any of this. But she has to because that lovely, wonderful institution called Social Security--you know, the program that was supposed to take care of my mothers generation during their golden years--is barely giving her enough money to buy toilet paper with...and wiping your ass is a pretty important thing! (If FDR was alive today, I'd beat him with his own leg braces.) Along with her pension, and the fact that my Dad has a couple more years to work, they'll survive, but there's no way they can keep their house, sadly.

So, our solution is to go in on a house together. A mother/daughter type deal for a mother and a daughter. We even found a mother/daughter real estate team! No shitting! It's the type of residence that can benefit all of us. They can live peacefully knowing they'll be taken care of in their old age, for a meager amount of money, and we can finally get our butts into a bigger place. Works out for everyone, right?

Not.

Every house has a problem. Every house is unsatisfactory...for her. I've seen some doozies that I LOVED that would work out great for us, but in the spirit of compromise, they're overlooked because it wasn't right for EVERYONE. Okay, I can deal. But in the meantime, my house is going on the market in a couple of weeks and if it sells fast, I'm up the proverbial creek without a paddle in sight. It'll be back to renting for a bit until we can all settle on something, I guess. And renting sucks.

I've tried talking to her about it all, and I know she's not purposefully trying to be difficult, but if she doesn't get herself into the right head space soon, I'm going to abandon the whole thing, because frankly, babying my mother is having an adverse effect on me. The more I baby her, the more I want to curl up into my own fetal position and cry.

Don't get me wrong. I love her. I would do anything for her. I owe her my life, but holy, HOLY LORD, I guess I'm just not compassionate enough to get her through this. Thank God for my brother. He's the same kind of emotive-never-wants-change kind of person that she is and he's been good for her to talk to. I think it's because I'm too close to the whole thing. I'm so anxious for my OWN change, that I'm not seeing how anxious this change is making HER. Or at least, I'm not as soft about it.

Dios Mio.

I'm even speaking Spanish. It must be bad.

I know that something will work out eventually. I know that everything will fall into its own karmic place in it's own due time.

I just have to stop checking my watch.