Dancing

I want to be with someone 

who will dance

and sing 

with abandon

and joy

in the kitchen

The Responsible One

I've always been the responsible, organized one who didn't cause a lot of waves.  I take care of people.  And I feel that I have been kicked in the teeth for it.

When I was young and my mother drank, I poured her drinks.  "My poor mother" needed help and I should give it to her.  I tried to be a good daughter. When I was older, I made dinners when my father traveled and my mother didn't feel the need to stop drinking to make a proper dinner.  She tried to bullshit me about what a good cook I was.  I just felt like I had to take care of myself because no one would take care of me.

Now, when I visit my mother, I can see the disgust for me in her eyes.  She doesn't like that I am competent,  responsible and organized. Because I am not fun.  But I am still expected to help her at every turn, whether it is driving her around, opening doors, holding her purse, or letting her lean on my arm when she flaps her hands at me.

Now, 30 years later, I am married with a son.  I do most of the housework, all of the cooking, grocery shopping, laundry and those mundane chores around the house that my husband and child "have no time" to do like feeding the cat and cleaning the litter or taking months of accumulated recycling out of the house. I cook good dinners and get told that its just okay. I then clean up the kitchen afterward because they are too busy to help and walk out of the room as I talk.

When I do something fun, my husband and son don't want to do it with me, although that is not what they will say, but they always seem to have a ready excuse.   I rarely get asked about the things I did and instead get asked whats for dinner or if I did the grocery shopping.  If I do an event with a friend that my husband doesn't approve of (a male friend), he just gets scornful.

I want someone to take care of me for a change. I want to come home to a clean house, a good meal, flowers on the table, and someone who wants to sit and hear what I have to say or even do things with me.  Seems simple, but so far from what I have.