Pancakes and Oxycontin

This morning I woke up feeling unmotivated and simply put...sad. So I crawled out of bed to make breakfast for the hot red-head lying next to me. Chocolate-chip pancakes. For me there is something therapeutic about cooking for other people and seeing them enjoy my food. I think this may be a common trait of fat-girls everywhere. Take Paula Deen for example. We are like crack pushers.

So, here she comes (the hot red-head...not Paula Deen) down the stairs into the kitchen. She tells me I look cute...and OH...DID I LOOK CUTE! She kisses my cheek and proceeds to make a peanut-butter and honey sandwich that she wraps in foil. Why foil? I am not sure, we have baggies. Then we proceed with our morning conversation...

Me: You want some
breakfast?

Hot RH: No thanks.

Hot RH: Are you sure you don't want to take
it
with you?

Hot RH: No thanks. Are you O.K.? You look
really
tired.

Me: Do I?

Pause for reflection on my tiredness. I think I look refreshed...don't you?

Hot RH: What are you going to do today?

Me: I haven't decided yet. I have no
idea.

Hot RH: Ok, well I'll see you at 11:30.

Me: Ok. Have a good morning.

The hot red-head leaves, I eat a pancake, and I get angry. Now I have this entire stack of fucking pancakes, and I am fuming. Whatever. We have our first couples therapy appointment today at noon. Maybe that can be our first topic of conversation..."Em doesn't appreciate me when I make her foods that she doesn't like/want." How fucking lame is that? Let's get real. This is not about Em, nor is about pancakes.

I think I really need to go back to what I have learned in my own therapy sessions and ask myself, "So what is this REALLY about?" Because Lord knows, it is not about chocolate-chip fucking pancakes. It's about me needing to feel appreciated. Like what I do matters to someone...anyone. I have never been enough for my family. They always want more. I was just in Indiana for 3 weeks to begin cleaning up the huge mess my family has created. When I would go to the nursing home, I would always be armed with clean clothes, meals, snacks, flowers, pictures...you name it...and the response would always be, "Why didn't you bring ____!" Fill in the blank. I spent hours cleaning their apartment, hired a crew to haul out the piles and piles of shit that covered the floors. Wiped down tables covered with white powder residue, remnants of crushed Oxycontin, Hydrocodone, and Xanax. Boxed up empty bottle after empty bottle because I couldn't drop them into the dumpster due to the large number of bottles, the illegality of the doctor shopping that my family has done, and for fear of raising anymore suspicion about the "business" they were running.I bought groceries, did laundry, took them to numerous doctor's appointments, fought w/ the directors to keep my mother in her nursing home, went on an endless scavenger hunt to collect all of the paperwork and evidence needed to just to begin the Medicaid application process. If the words "thank you" dared to leave their lips, it was only if their right hand was simultaneously extended in need. I have left my job, my home, my life and for what? Does what I have done even matter? Has it made a difference? Or, at the end of the day, will my family go back to living in filth, snorting pills, guzzling methadone, and will I just continue to make pancakes in hopes of getting the validation I so desperately and pathetically seem to need?