Move in Current Events

This living arrangement with my sister and her husband is a beautiful thing for them. They both get to work full-time. My sister has somebody else who cooks, cleans and does chores. Somebody who will re-up the groceries and my rent money covers the cost of my niece’s daycare. I’ve also been such a huge support for my sister when her husband has to work out of town. “My biggest fear is that you’re planning to move out” she says to me from time to time. This arrangement hasn’t been a complete walk in the park for me. I’m grateful to be here. They took me in just when I was about to lose everything. They gave me the opportunity to clear my debt, which I did but when they finally got pregnant I owed it to them to help them out. So I did. There was a three-month window between my sisters return to work and my niece’s first day at daycare. I spent that whole summer being a nanny full-time and then going to work full-time. That was rough but rewarding. I’ll never forget the first time I had to put her down for a nap. I had so much anxiety that day, I was doing everything for the first time. I’ve never even changed a diaper. I held her in my arms and I sang to her. I lightly brushed her eyes closed with my fingers so she would stop fighting to keep them open. She just kept smiling. My heart grew three sizes that day.
Now my niece is three and a half years old. My sister is pregnant with their second child and we’re all living in a two bedroom, one bathroom house. I live in the basement. We haven’t had the conversation about how we’re going to make this work when their child is born. She is due in April. I know that my sister really wants me here but I feel ready to launch out of here. I’ve been a mombie for a few years now. Waking up with my niece and taking her to daycare is not exactly hard but I frequently get to a point where I am too exhausted to cope with things. I get frustrated when I am tired and I lack the energy to do things that I want to do. I get so angry about it and it’s so petty because I know that I can restructure my night routine so that I can go to bed early. I do not have to be angry. I just need to make different choices and I will.
My brother in law is about to have his three week holiday. One of those weeks my niece’s daycare will be closed and I will have a proper break from that. Assuming that my brother in law is capable of waking up to take care of her. He has a history of just not doing that. He is a good guy but he is just such a guy and I hate being around strong masculine energy. I hate being around people that need everyone and everything to shrink around them so that they can be the biggest thing in the room. He is not that bad but he does have a lot of moments. Especially when he is drunk and wants to try and have debates with me but I don’t play with narcissists. We stand on opposite ends of every issue. This a white heterosexual man who has never had to face adversities in his life. “I know that you think that you have anxiety but I do not believe that is a thing. People just need to not let things bother them.” he said to me when I was defending his little sister who was raped. She is now a seventeen-year-old with crippling anxiety and a drinking problem and he believes that she should not have let herself get raped. I think that the most mortifying thing about his family is that my sister told them my rape story. She had no right to do that. I do not tell anyone that part of my history. I figured out that they knew because my sister’s mother in law asked me to give her daughter advice after shortly after she was raped. Now I feel like I have a stain on me when I see those people.
Anyways, this house is crowded and I am ready to launch out of here and I haven’t had that conversation with them yet. My sister will be devastated. My brother in law will agree that it would be a good move for everybody. My sister will, of course, be supportive but she will have a lot of stress and anxiety for the rest of her pregnancy. I would plan my move around her maternity leave though. She would have 18 months to think of a way to sort everything out so she can return to work. I need more time and space for me. I feel like I have been pretty self-centred and selfish this year but I need to be. Helping everybody else out is what landed me here in the first place.

Last updated December 15, 2018