Bullshit, bullshit and more bullshit.

It’s coming, I can feel it. It’s as unavoidable as the transition from day to night. It’s washing over me gradually, like the tide coming in — advancing and retreating, rising a little more each time.

"It" is not exactly a depression, not exactly a hopelessness and not exactly a rage. It’s the bastard child of all of those, with a few other paramours squirming at the bottom of the orgiastic pile. For lack of a better description, let’s call it a melancholy, with just a piquant hint of anger.

What do I, Sir Stuff, DmentD, have to be melancholy about? I have a wonderful wife, whom I love dearly and value above all else in this, or any other world. I have a fantastic new house that is perfect for entertaining and just hanging out in. I have a horde of wonderful friends who respect and appreciate me, as I do them. I have a decent job. All-in-all not too bad, one would think.

But, I have only just recently — two months after taking possession of the house — been able to spend more than two nights in a row in my own bed, surrounded by my own belongings, in my new house. The nights spent there are typically only after getting home late, having no time to get any of the multitude of things done around the house that need doing… the partially completed and unstarted projects that are rapidly piling up and beginning to loom menacingly over me.

The wife that I love so much is stressed to the gills, not sleeping much and so steeped in her own juices at a certain group of folks (to be made clear soon enough) that she can hardly contain herself. I’m virtually powerless to do anything to console her or make the situation much better. Virtually.

The only times we have been able to stem the tide have been at the parties we’ve been able to hastily throw together "because we need to blow off some steam or we’re going to fucking explode."

The primary source of all our pain is my family. An unfortunate accident has triggered a necessity for my brothers and sister to pool our time resources to assist my mother who busted her leg. Accidents happen… it could have very well been any of us. Three fractures, a plate and several pins later and she was in need of a hell of a lot of assistance. No problem. We the family (including all in-law siblings) love mom, and would do anything to help.

… as long as it is convenient.

At least that is the unspoken opinion of the majority. Hell, I don’t even think it’s a conscious though, just a reflex. Shit rolls down hill, and I being the youngest and therefore lowest man on the totem pole, end up eyebrow deep in it.

In the beginning of this whole thing, someone needed to be on-site 24 hours a day as mom was unable to get out of bed without assistance, fix meals, get to the commode, etc. Nowadays, she can get around a bit, but still requires a whole heap of help… "tucking in" at night, making sure she has had dinner, taking care of any other little things that need doing. She no longer needs anyone to stay overnight.

My sister, a nurse BTW, got the short end of the stick last time something like this happened. At least that is her story, and she’s sticking to it. Her selective memory seems to omit all the help Lady and I gave her. Granted, she did the lion’s share, but she wasn’t entirely alone. The remainder of the family more or less left it to her to deal with.

This time around she is determined not to get shafted. In the process of making sure everyone was crystal clear that she wasn’t doing all the work, she managed to piss us all off. Starting out of the gate with a hostile attitude is not a great way to win friends and influence people. The long and short of it is this: she served the ball and walked away from the net. Along the path she managed to so severely piss Lady off that a friendship that bordered on being a close sister relationship is now laying in ruin. I’ve never, ever seen Lady so enraged in all the fourteen years we’ve been together.

My brothers are the greatest guys in the world. They’d give you the shirt off of their backs if you needed it. But in this circumstance they are asleep at the wheel.

One lives about thirty minutes away, and keeps milking the sob story about having to get up at 4:30am to go to work. Guess what jackass; I’m only an hour behind you. Take your violin and go play it for an audience that can give you a little sympathy.

The other works erratic schedules, and honestly, there’s nothing to be done about that. He does have several days a week available to him, just not at predictable times and he does try to get out to the house when he can. He has a "proximity" theory about the relationship between geographical distance from my mother, and time spent helping. I’ll let you take a guess as to who lives closer.

The problem arose from everyone having one excuse or another not to come, or if they do come, to stay. Staying at night became the biggest problem everyone seemed to have. We had at the time of the accident just started moving out of my mom’s house, having moved back in for a year in preparation to buy a house of our own. My sister copped the attitude that we shouldn’t be in such a hurry to move our stuff into the new house — that way we could be live-in babysitters and let everyone off the hook. She simply couldn’t understand that we would actually like to live in our new house.

My brothers bellyached about going and/or staying during the week. Either getting up early or erratic schedule got in the way. The weekends were ever so more convenient. Well no shit, huh? I guess they are.

Lady and I, being who we are, were not about to abandon my mother — even at the expense of being taken advantage of by the rest of my family. Remember the bottom of the hill, and how shit rolls down it? Yup. There we were, standing and looking up the slope at the inevitable mudslide of crap coming down at us. They had won. My sister and brothers got what they wanted… to do as little as possible. We took the weekdays (and Sunday evenings), and they got to split up the other two days amongst themselves. What a chore… and we heard moaning about that.

To complicate this whole thing, my mother actually was making excuses for them. "Oh, your sister works hard and has a (sixteen year old) kid to look after", "Oh, your brother has to get up early". Tough. Shit. They should do their share. We’re sacrificing, so should they. We work just as hard AND we had a house we hadn’t spent more than one night in. Boo-the-fuck-hoo about their shit. So, we get penalized for not having a kid to take care of, and for living close — great, that’s infinately fair.

So, here’s where this little tale ends:

Lady and I are depressed because we have a wonderful house that doesn’t feel like home because we haven’t been able to really live in it. Nor have we had the time to finish putting all our things away — most of it remains in boxes.

We are bitter and pissed off at my family because they abandoned us. Volunteering means doing something willingly, not because you can’t foist it off on someone else — and that’s what they’ve done to us.

We are tired because the "oomph" has been taken out of us. There aren’t enough hours in the day to do everything we need to do with the additional workload piled on.

It’s tainting everything we do. The stink of it is on everything we touch. The only shining hopes we have are the times we make to spend with our friends. Those, right now, are the best times.

As the tide comes in, so too does it go out. The melancholy will recede, and this too shall pass. Right now, though, I feel like I’m drowning, and poor Lady has gone under the ice for a third time. I can only hope she makes it without going homicidal.