Bad Wallpaper

“Family love is messy, clinging, and of an annoying and repetitive pattern, like bad wallpaper.”
― Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

She measures her life in messes. Not days or months or years but messes! It has always been that way. A shy child, she hides in her books, pretending that mean girls didn't make fun of her short bangs or lack of athletic ability.

There's her parents' mess. No two people were better caregivers until her mother suffered a stroke. Each day she listened as her mom cried out with pain from legs that were no longer usable and eyes that could no longer see. When her mom's stomach twists after long months in bed, the surgeon recommends doing nothing, but she gives her mom the choice to live or die, and her mom chooses life.

The mess is almost bearable while her father is alive, holding his wife's hand during his daily visits to the nursing home. Still, the burden becomes even heavier when he dies of leukemia from long-ago radiation.

And, of course, there is the mess with her ex-husband. She misses his Renaissance Man intelligence but not his narcissism and temper tantrums. Throwing out everything he left behind is therapeutic, even if it comes with frequent tears.

Later, there's the mess with her boyfriend. He's fascinating and funny and makes her feel young again. But when his dog dies, he goes into a downward spiral, and suddenly they haven't spoken in weeks.

She wonders who is responsible for the mess with her latte-loving daughter, who's beautiful, intelligent, and so spoiled rotten, her bank account is in the red every other week, but she chooses to blame it on her Ex.

Her Ex is also undoubtedly responsible for the mess with her 45-year-old meth addict son and his meth addict girlfriend, whom she now provides with weekly drug strips to test whether his meth is adulterated with fentanyl. Because her son certainly wouldn't want his drug high to be spoiled by an accidental overdose, particularly when he's already minus two friends following their trips to the morgue.

And let us not forget the mess caused by her OCD desire to clean things up. Who knew the grimy black stuff she scrubbed from the shower stall was silicon? Scraping out the nasty stuff felt great until the shower leaked, causing part of the living room ceiling below to collapse.

And finally, there's the mess with her damn dog, who eats tiles from the bathroom floor. She supposes she should be grateful since she finally gets to clean behind the claw-footed tub during the re-grouting process. That is until she notices black mold clinging to the silicone outside the shower.

She remembers her childhood, her wise mother reading to her for hours daily. She thinks of the book she loved by a now controversial author.

"And this mess is so big
And so deep and so tall,
We cannot pick it up.
There is no way at all!"
― Dr. Seuss, The Cat in the Hat

She truly believes the cat had it correct. The messes are too big and deep and tall to ever go away. Perhaps, it would be boring if they did. She is willing to take that chance but doubts if the dice will roll in her favor.

— opelikakat