Low Road Here I Come in Current Events

I want to take the low road. I want to commit to being vindictive and spiteful over petty things. Those feelings are what I am wrestling with currently. Not a good use of my energy.

Toni, my roommate, does not owe me cooked meals. I know that. However, she ordered herself a pizza instead of cooking the other day and it made me feel some type of way. I was half expecting her to have cooked us something while I was in class as usual but she didn’t. It’s just the idea that she came home and then didn’t feel like doing a damn thing, as always, then and ordered something that she knew she couldn’t share with me. I don’t eat dairy. I worked my 8.5-hour shift, went to class, and then had to cook and clean the apartment when I got back from class. I didn’t feel like doing anything but I’m an adult and have to parent myself which means doing things I don’t feel like doing. It’s her leave it for mommy and daddy approach that she has to everything which has me feeling vindictive and spiteful.

It’s the small things like leaving all her dishes beside the sink instead of just putting them in the dishwasher that grinds my gears. She leaves the cores, seeds and fruit stems in the sink or on the counter for me to put in the garbage for her. She will never write on the whiteboard what she’s used up. She’s eaten my leftovers and treats that were baked for me specifically in the past without apologizing. She barely takes out the recycling or garbage. Doesn’t check the mail. All of the “big” things that need to get done to prevent bugs, rodents and mold she never does either. It isn’t even on her mind. I clean out all of the appliances and go behind them. She just lays around with her feet up because she doesn’t do anything unless she feels like it. She is 36 and going on 17. I want to do that too but then things would never get done.

Let us not forget that she was financially abusive when we first moved in and I was left to supply and provide everything and then some. She literally contributed nothing and just uses all of my stuff shamelessly. She seems to not understand some basic boundaries and tries to get away with using the products that I keep in the shower caddy. My expensive shampoos, body washes etc. I recently had to store those in my bathroom to force her to buy her own. The cheek, the nerve, the audacity and the gumption.

I cannot bring myself to communicate this to her because then I would feel like a nagging mother. She has reacted as such in the past. All I did was ask her to take her laundry out of the dryer so that I could put mine in and she snapped at me like I was her mother nagging her to do something she didn’t feel like doing. Now I just dump it on her bed whenever she forgets about it.

I also have those old wounds from her when we first moved in which I still have bottled up. I am waiting for another opportunity to try and add self-awareness. I’ve succeeded before and added self-awareness, but the opportunity has to be just right. It was painful but I finally did manage to get her to see that she was the toxic one in her situationship and how she made herself toxic at home with her drinking. She has since quit drinking, though she is stoned more than ever. I want her to become aware of her toxic codependence and how her financial abuse had affected me.

When we agreed to move in together she sold herself as a responsible adult and what I got was an angsty teen with a drinking problem. We’re the same age, by the way. She was all over the place with how we split costs. I was left to supply us with everything under the guise that we were going to split the cost only to have her change her mind last second. Groceries were something she was back and forth with also. Take it out of the rent was her response to everything. Eventually, one night when I opened up to her about what my family was going through with my grandmother, she turned that whole evening into the World Owes Toni show.

She accused me of not paying my share of anything. I had all of the receipts and had since shown her that it was she who owed me. Actually, I didn’t technically show her because she refused to look at them. She still wanted me to send her biweekly payments for rent and still carry the entire cost of the groceries until the end of the month when she would transfer me her half. That was not balanced at all. She had my first whole check, practically. I went against her stipulation and sent her biweekly payments after I deducted the groceries. Then I had since stopped doing biweekly and just sent her my share at the end of the month with the groceries deducted. Flash forward to today, she has since decided that she will pay rent in full and I will just pay for the groceries in full. With inflation, I have been sending her next to nothing. Actually, she owed me that month because I spent more on groceries than my share of the rent but I overspent on purpose. I had reasons. Also, I pay the internet bill and pay for all of our streaming services. Netflix, Disney +, Prime, & Crave.

Whatever so things are somewhat stable but I don’t think that this is the best situation for me. It’s not the worst. Communication is the problem here but I have to get the timing right. She is not an emotionally intelligent person and will not be able to handle that conversation and will play the victim. She might even decide to leave. I don’t know. She was desperate to move in together because of her crippling loneliness. It was supposed to be the cure for her but it didn’t work. It can’t. It’s the context she gives things in her life and not the content in her life which causes her to suffer.

I drew boundaries long ago to not become her emotional support dog. She is an adult who can get her life right on her own. I’m usually supportive of my friends but codependent people are parasitic to me and I wasn’t aware of how toxic her codependence was when we moved in. I need hard boundaries otherwise she will drag me into her shit. I wanted to move in together so that I could afford part-time work and go back to school. Her loneliness isn’t cured and her thing is to try and change everything and everyone instead of herself so I can see her wanting to move out. If I could afford to do it on my own, I would. She wants to get a new place. One that is bigger and better but it will just be more space that I will have to clean and it will be better things that I will have to maintain on my own.

So what I want to do is just stop. I want to let all the chores pile up and let all the food run out and maybe she will see what I do around here. Just lay around like a lazy bum and be emotionally incontinent. We’ll see if I can take the low road.

What I should be doing right now is studying because if we don’t understand the material strongly enough tomorrow the class will be an entire waste of our time according to our teacher. So I took a nap, I’m drinking caffeinated tea and I’m going to stay up late and study. That’s a better use of my energy but I needed to air this out.

Also, she is going to come home late because of her boxing class and I don’t feel like cooking so I’m just going to not do that. I’m 36 and turning 17 now. I don’t do anything unless I feel like it. I mope around and self-medicate because I’m emotionally immature. I can’t manage my feelings on my own and I’m waiting for someone to come to do it for me. To do everything for me. Since I’m in denial that nobody’s coming I’m just going to feel desperately alone but I’m just self-medicate even harder. That’s how real adults handle problems after all. We just cleave to our vices until we forget that the pain is happening. I’m not hurting when I’m drunk, high, making that purchase, eating junk food, having that affair, etc. I’m so misunderstood and special. I’ll invite everybody to my pity party. They’ll all coddle me and accept my excuses as to why I am allowed to just suck at life and health and need society to carry me. I’m just a victim of my circumstances after all. I don’t have the capacity to create the changes that I need to support better outcomes. Poor little old me.

I just set myself up for some bad karma but fuck it.