the diplomacy of assholes
Oh world–you aren’t gonna be easy. Part of the reason I live in Denver was to try and get to know my birth family a little more intimately because really–getting to know people who look like you and sometimes do act like you was a pretty interesting thing. I thought it would be great and we have stayed as a result of taking residence inside the hoarder house, cleaning what we could out and making what units we could make livable, livable.
My friends have lived upstairs–largely because this is a garbage building and my friends have been good to her and have paid rent on time etc. Admittedly there were times I was not able to pay full rent. As you might have noticed from my disclosure a few days ago–a LOT of money gets taken out to take care of basic benefits for me in Don, to the tune of being more than I take home in a week taken out monthly before I even have a chance to decide a dollar. That seemed okay and for a time Don did not work full time because his boss was not giving him the hours. He quit that job earlier this year because he couldn’t depend on the time. My mother and I had come to an agreement and I was paying her bi-weekly when I got paid (well over half my take home for the biweekly time…) Now she was well aware of our finances and I was very clear I was doing my best–part of the reason I got my second job was because he was struggling to bring home the cash. I have payment plans with the IRS and half the world so it’s not like I am just out here living the good life no problem. There has never been any time Don and I were rolling in it–hell it took us a YEAR to afford tires–and this trip? I haven’t paid a fucking dollar for it. I gave my travel cash to a colleague and he paid for my air, because that is how you get things done when you’re poor, haha.
All through this year I have been pushing my mother to finish the building so she could be with my sister’s children, which is her whole goal in life right now. Don and I did what we could, hell we put tenants upstairs in August to kind of push it along—getting several grand before it was done and it’s still not done and she is charging them security. I did not get her permission there but everything I did do was to move her further towards her goal of getting real rent to survive on. Part of us NOT paying full rent involved taking care of building issues and shoveling snow, which we did. I have let tenants in upstairs, been here for contractors–did what I could do help this shit along so it wasn’t all about taking. Again–let me point out the sacrifices she has made getting more than $4800 a year which was her max for her single tenant before he died and we moved in. They weren’t hers except monetarily once she saw what needed to be done. But actual time and effort? It was ours and my friends. She has been absent for most of the past few years. Like not here, not reachable. Melissa has a broken door we had to get in because of uneven locks and it has had a fucking padlock on it for 6 months. That is the kind of trouble I bring, just to give you perspective. My trouble is bringing people who were chill because they liked me and Don.
We did the work in Melissa’s unit and it’s smaller than ours–my friends and I. Don and I did what we could for the unit across the hall but it needed a real contractor because of the shortcuts my birth mother’s father in law took–one example being having to use 4 wrenches for one toilet because they had all different nuts. All throughout our time here we have had a bathroom with black mold and mildew infecting the grout and around, cabinets falling off our kitchen walls. We were paying almost double what the guy who lived here before paid–the only work being done was a replacement of carpet from him to us and we painted it really nice….
***I feel I need to add this in here now–but I guess all that family love I never feel has been proven in a pretty extreme way, once you read what happened, below.
***
So my egg donor, as mother would be a little suspect–sent me a scathing letter demanding I pay $350 more per month for the same shitty apartment, with a bill of issues back dated for the time we were here. She has somehow justified charging me for the window someone threw a rock at–apparently all the homeless people thefts etc are our fault according to her. And the bill is over $5k. She has demanded we pay the $5k or vacate before January 1, and agree to pay $1050 for the same unit we have paid $700 for until recently I agreed to pay more. Yeah, it really happened. Now here I was thinking a courier delivered it–nope, my own sister. Somehow these two got together and said…hey, we can’t talk to Deanna. She is unreasonable and will not listen. Now I am being facetious here but the two of them decided sending me a threatening letter demanding payment or that we vacate the premises was somehow a reasonable fucking request with 29 days notice. They decided to just wreck any conversation or courtesy or even the ability to be polite–because. Well I have only gleaned they both must be fucking insane to think that was ANY way to deal with someone you have called family, but maybe someone you hate, sure. I am not an asshole–she could have said we need to talk about these things and work something out. But it was a letter detailing a list of charges she has decided to collect from me and Don. From electricity for the tent outside to a sink hole that erupted on her property–the same property whose foundation was laid in 1905-with gutters that have long rotted out. Yeah–that’s on us.
I still feel I need to write that–instead of talking to me, my family decided to threaten to sue me and Don. Yeah, they really did. There was no attempt at let’s talk about these issues and come to a resolution that works for both of us-help me out and we will fix your place. Nope–just threats. Threats with no notice in the same month I was supposed to go away? YUP. They actually decided that would be okay. I still cannot get over that. They actually sat down together–and my mother decided with my sister that I was an asshole apparently. Kinda crazy until you see how they live their lives.
Guess what has now happened?
I don’t hold grudges, no–but I do fucking remember, and once you turn the conversation into not a conversation but a threatening of litigation? Well, fuck you. She was an egg donor, period. She used to be a friend and would come over and smoke weed with us because she was so stressed–but now. Well. She has chosen herself and fuck us. She is just as much of a stranger to me now as she was when I was looking for her–in fact I have no desire to know her at all. This is not how someone who wants to have an adult conversation acts–these are the acts of an emotional terrorist who just wants to punish. Punish me for what exactly? She wanted $800 last I heard and I offered her $750 until January (when I did promise to pay $800) with the expectation something in the kitchen would be done–somewhere in here. But now we go to over a grand—man oh man this is not the way you sow love. So I had ALREADY agreed to pay more rent even with the condition as it is–and that was two months ago now we agreed and I have been paying more since we agreed on time and for that amount-I literally agreed to pay more for no more work being done and no reason for it beyond she wants more money–and she still thought this was a way to be. Wow, again. This is the diplomacy of assholes. I was pissed she seemed to be sending my friends letters with this kind of hostility (she has sent some doozies upstairs too lately)–but to send it to someone you had at one time considered family? Well fuck me man.
All good. I learned counting on her was a losing bet. Now both tenants will likely leave because…once again, they were my friends. They both read her letter to me and both were just beside themselves. Nobody knew what to say.
Ironically this comes the same week I tried to reach out to my aunt to help my birth mother–I mentioned the issues and mentioned she needed some help from other family as her husband had dropped out, if you remember. I had even mentioned we were looking to leave but to make sure my mother had help because Don and I couldn’t do it. And so, to reward my time and my concern, has thrown me out with less than a month’s notice. Yeah. She really did that. Then again, they all think I am not grateful. So I think I get it. I think they are not grateful for me trying to be a good influence in her life and being grateful I was trying to push things along and did get stuff done. So we all have our fingers pointed. Fuck it, I am not playing that game. I am not invested enough in any of this to bother blaming anyone for this. We will leave and that’s good enough. That’s all we can do. I am pissed but life goes on.
But it’s like everyone has said–and man it is everyone who knows me has said this in one form or another…these people are not your family, they don’t even THINK of you like that–oh wow how that has now been proven.
