Where a narcissist would call home

Good lord y'all.  My mother sold her house.  Wait, let me show you where I grew up!

 

 So, a man gets custody of all 4 of his very young daughters in 1964.  He decides, after much deliberation, to buy the above 4-unit apartment building.  It is 15 FEET from the railroad tracks.  15 feet.  This was during the Vietnam war, so the freight trains came about every hour, the passenger trains about every 45 minutes.  The street out front was only 2 lanes at the time, you used to be able to park in front, but the yard was never bigger - and there was never any grass.  You can see how child-friendly this place was.  here is the view from the top:



So extremely busy railroad tracks on one side, busy scary street right in front, and an asphalt alley behind.  no grass, no yard, nowhere to play.  My bedroom was the closest to the street and tracks.  It was LOUD AS FUCK, is what I'm saying.  He had a carpenter guy come out and put doorways in that linked 3 of the apartments together, so that there were enough bedrooms/bathrooms.  Don't think his logic was about renting and making money, he rented ONE unit out.  We had 3 kitchens, 3 living rooms...  They (mom and dad) lived in the upstairs unit, connected to the two downstairs but separate.  They had like, a separate apartment up there.  Living room furniture, balcony, kitchen - king of the castle.  It was weird, and not normal - you know?  Not a house...?

OH MY SHITTING GOD THERE ARE MORE PICTURES OF THE PLACE ON GOOGLE from the realtors website I guess:

Side of the apartment building.  That upstairs balcony was their separate living quarters.  Ground floor middle, behind the plants, was the living room we used as a sort of Rec Room, ballet bars, stereo, bean bag chairs... When I got older I rented that unit .  No grass, that fence at the far left is the alley, toward the right is Death Street.  FUN!

Living room.  It didn't look like this when I lived there - it was 70's wonderama when I lived there.  Now it's all prissy white furniture, white carpets, white walls.  She wants me to take that coffee table, it weighs about 200 pounds (solid as hell) and it's huge.  I dunno.  Bonfire?

Anywhoozle - she sold her house and blah blah she's already closed escrow, has 60 days to rent back and GTFO.  Guess what.

I'm going up there on Thursday/Friday, to hang out with a coupla sisters and talk to my mom about moving companies.  Yeah, that'd be ME.  I have already had a panic attack about it - which is weird, right?  Because I can walk away if shit goes down.  I mean, all that could possibly happen is that she gets stabby with her words, and I get STABBY back and then I kill her I go home. 

Wait - I forgot to tell you this part.  See, mom is from that generation where photographs were more precious than gold.  She did one thing, she documented the holy HELL out of our lives.  She has them all starting in these 1960's photo albums, remember these:

they are thick and huge.  Starting in like 1964?  1965?  and on up.  I have no idea how many books, bazillions of photos.  And captions underneath, all documenting our lives.  Here's the point.  She would NEVER, EVER let those books out of the house before.  But all the sisters are clamoring for them, someone save them, since she throws everything away, SAVE THE PHOTOS, SAVE WHAT WE HAVE OF OUR CHILDHOOD!!

*I offered to (if mom will let me pry them from her cold old fingers) take all the books, scan all the photos, put the books back together, send everyone a thumb-drive with copies, and send the books to whoever*

Essentially?  I just offered my family an entire year of my time.  remember this little gem?

Yeah, like that. 

So my panic attacks are about mom saying something like (in a quavery worried voice) "make sure you don't toss any of those pictures" and me saying something like "stab stab stab" because, well - only another ULB could understand the millions of lines of sub-text in a statement like that.  And I don't want to fight, I want to help my sisters to help this old lady to get in a home and shut the fuck up.

The sister who is coming out, is the one who was the most behind me when I started NOT lying about the abuse that happened to me as a kid.  She is the closest in age, the one who saw it all (most of it).  Now she is the one who is trying to re-write history - not to negate MY reality, but in order for her to have a relationship with her mother before she dies.  So I am already running conversational scenarios in my head (like we do, dont'cha know) to see what topics I could talk about without saying "stab stab stab".  Are you sensing a theme?

oh I'm fine.  I'm ALWAYS fine, we are always fine, right?  I'm just looking forward to this like a dental cleaning or a pap smear.  Rectal exam.  But, I will get my hands on those photo albums and then they will be safe.