TAIA BOOKS

8/23/2023

I took a break from my writing mainly because I had to work on myself, which took lots of time and energy, mostly to organize myself back to the state I like to be: calm, collected, and philosophical. I had to deal with visitors to my house, where I live, where I organized to make it cozy, calm, and fair and started creating havoc. God knows I tried to be hospitable for them. I prepared a room for them; I organized a guest tray with all the necessities, and I even placed flowers in a vase and a carafe with filtered water. They arrived, and I had to observe their weird behavior. Let’s call it that. The first day, I watched them place their food leftovers on our fridge’s shelves. I knew it was a bad sign from the beginning when I found them occupying all the shelves. That is considering that I don’t live by myself. We’re a family of 4, and no one is hiding. The next day, I found them removing our clothes from our washer and dryer. The following day, in the morning, I found my fridge door not closed tightly, and the temperature inside felt like a light breeze. That’s when I realized that they decided to marinate chicken and left it in a big bucket on the shelf of our fridge, preventing the door from closing properly. You would think they are teenagers, but they are not. The husband was 30, and the wife was 25. I lost it that night, and when my husband lay down in our bed for the night, looking at his relaxed face, I got even more mad. I told him that his brother and his wife were causing me too much inconvenience. I don’t complain about looking after our kids, but I don’t want to walk around and fix things after his brother and his wife. It takes time and energy and takes away my attention from things I have on my list. I wouldn’t say I like dealing with children who are not children and not my responsibility. My husband was silent, which he usually does when he knows that I’m right. He only managed to say that they were staying for a week or less. Total. That made me explode, of course. How could I not?! I have a feeling that I had to explode and poison my husband’s life a little so that he knows how I feel and remembers that for the next time. The next day during dinner they told us that they were going to the main attraction in our city. They didn’t invite my children to go with them and their little girl, who acted like she loved spending time with my daughter. Actually, both of my children, including my teenage son, spent time with her. That night, my daughter spiked a fever, and I ended up around two in the morning giving her Ibuprofen for a fever of 101. To watch closely my school-age daughter, I lie down next to her. I was awakened, actually both of us, by the loud voices of our guests, the Dad, the Mom, and the toddler, all screaming from the excitement that they needed to get ready for the attraction park. I looked at the time it was 8 am. A few minutes later, more loud voices prevented us from sleeping since my sister-in-law brought her girls to attend the attraction park with their uncle. I walked to my son’s room, who was also sleeping and started to wake up. That lasted for about 30 minutes, and then they left. During this time, we all tried to fall back to sleep. We were so sleepy.
For my kids not to feel left out, I took them to Barnes and Noble and told them we needed to buy more books and things. There, I texted both the husband and the wife the list of things that I don’t appreciate, like removing my clothes from the washer and dryer, not closing the fridge all the way, reorganizing things on the countertop in the kitchen to the point that I couldn’t open a cabinet to get a mug that morning, and most importantly waking us up with their loud screams. The husband never responded, but the wife said I was “thrippin” about everything. My husband allowed her to use our laundry. She didn’t know we were all sleeping. How could she know if the doors to our rooms were closed? I ignored that “trippin” expression and texted that I expected them to be more respectful in our house and not cause too much inconvenience for us. To which she responded that they wouldn’t be staying at our place anymore since they caused so much inconvenience and would be moving to my sister’s place when they got back. I didn’t care. I just knew I had to tell my children, which I did, and explained to them that I couldn’t watch silently all the disrespectful things they were doing. When my husband got back home from work, my son told him about what had happened. I was in our bedroom doing my regular chores when my husband barged in, clearly agitated about what had happened. “
Why did you do that?! Why you didn’t wait for me to get home?” he started. I coldly told him that I had spoken with you the night before and that I had told him how I felt. I didn’t hide anything. I was done tolerating their behavior. You went behind my back and told them that they can use our fridge as they want, our laundry as they please, wake us up in the morning if they wish so, not invite our children to the park with them, only to demonstrate loudly that they invited other children, but now ours. I’m done with them showing disrespect to me and my children. This is not a hotel. This is my home. Do you think I went behind your back?! That’s exactly what I had to do when you went behind my back to let them do what they were doing. I treated you the same as you treated me. Why acting all surprised?!”
My husband still continued with his complaints. I gave him my phone so he could read the messages between us. The wife wrote that instead of discussing everything face to face, I sent them text messages. I responded that I would not wait for them to return to my house in the evening to discuss the issues. Why would I want to keep my mind occupied the whole day thinking about them? That’s how people get depressed and anxious. I resolved the problem and continued doing my regular chores and doing pleasant things. Eventually, I told my husband what the real cause of the boiling point was- not including my children in the park excursion and not even inviting them. I told my husband I spend a good portion of my time, energy, and consideration making sure my children don’t feel rejected, bullied, or basically traumatized, which ruins their self-esteem. And when I see that they are not included by their uncle and that uncle is not even doing it in a courteous way, leaving as quietly as possible but boasting instead, waking everyone up, it’s truly upsetting for me. If they had invited my children, I would’ve insisted on paying for the park. Why are my children supposed to stand and watch how their uncle is leaving with other children to the park?
Our daughter happened to pass by. “I asked Auntie last night if I could go with them, but she said that my parents had already decided.”
“No, sweetie, nothing was decided with me. Let’s ask Daddy,” I turned to my husband. “Did they discuss anything with you?”
“No,” he said.
“Well, what do you expect from people who treat us as a hotel in an expensive city and try to traumatize our children even on our watch?!” I said. My husband grew silent. He knows about a tigress inside me that will do everything to protect my children.

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The moral right of Kira D. May as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs, and Patent Act of 1988.