An update on my father...

He remains in the hospital. Each time I call him, I wake him up. Doesn't matter what time it is, I wake him up. Selfishly, I'm hoping he won't answer the phone, so I don't have to hear the sadness, the depression in his voice. But he answers each time, even though he's been napping.. he answers it anyways.

He's been taking to telling me he loves me, without my prompting him with my first telling him the same.. but for tonight when I called. I could hear my stepmothers voice in the background and before we hung up, I said, "I love you dad, get some rest" and the phone went dead.

It's important to know that while we "have" been getting along to an extent, since he got so sick (mostly because she needs me and the things that I can do for HER)her and I really have never gotten along. Oh I tried, once I hit a certain maturity in my life, I tried, but always to no avail. She has disliked me since the moment she met me when I was 8 years old.

And she is the reason I never thought my father loved me. Well, in all honesty, it lays with him too. As I look back I see that he was almost afraid to acknowledge that he loved/loves me and from tonights call - I think he still is.

That makes me sad and angry at the same time. And according to her, I don't do enough to help my father while he is sick. What more can I do? I can't move there like my stupid sister and her as old as her mother fiance can. I have children that I cannot uproot from school to move to Phx for what could be just a few more months or less if he doesn't make it. I don't think I'm being selfish with that, am I? I go down there every month and do what I can do, on an income of disability which is less than 1100$ a month. I have bills to pay, groceries to buy, kids to clothe and roof and yet I still manage to go there every month, staying in a hotel and going out to eat for the days we are there. Like before, when my gram was dying, I had done the same and I just managed to have money saved in an account again and now I am broke from the traveling, again.

I know that I am selfish, when I say I hope he doesn't answer the phone because "I" don't want to hear the pain in his voice, but am I being selfish when I say I don't want to go down there because I can't afford to nor do I want to see him that way, wasting away to nothing? The lines are blurred. The accusations flying. I'm not a good daughter because I'm not down there more and my nutcase sister (who btw, I had to bail out of jail the last time I was in Phx, for a DUI and dad has no idea about it nor did my stepmother thank me even once.. no one but me to get her out, no one else would, her fiance kept calling me telling me that I better do it, because he wasn't going to do it, wtf?)... she can go up every weekend. Her fiance somehow has money, though neither of them work, plus she doesn't live 4.5/5 hours away, only 2. And each time I have come home from there, it's taken me at least 7 hours to get home... last time I was in the car for 13 hours! 13 HOURS between the traffic, getting a flat tire and running out of gas - who the hell wants to make that kind of trip??

On an aside, I wrote a post about how I thought others were lying when they talked about how wonderful their lives were. I wasn't singling any one person out or even thinking of any one in particular when I wrote that. I guess I was just frustrated that my life is such shit right now, it makes it difficult to believe that others are having a good time. My thinking is shot I guess. My life has never been easy, no one has ever told me that it would be.. maybe I'm jealous of those who appear to have it all together, when it feels and looks like my life just keeps crumbling more and more. The last 6 years have been far more difficult for me than I could have believed would be true, at least in adulthood, especially after some of the things I have gone through as an adult...

I was just bitching. Sorry to those that may have taken it personal, I honestly didn't mean for it to be taken that way.