Long Time Coming

Before I turned my Twitter account private, again, I mentioned that I needed to blog.
I do.
There is much to say. Please bear with me.
What is it that makes an adult not approach another adult with maturity worthy of both of their ages? Why do some people have to go through various other means, people, and channels to communicate? This horrific phenomenon is plaguing society, and it has affected numerous areas of my life.

When Jacob and I agreed to move into my uncle's house, we did so under the guise of performing a favor and service to my family. Admittedly, there was also the chance to see if we could stand each other 24/7, without risking the hassle of dealing with a lease agreement. The best news: we made it. The worst news? The cost was great. It was not a financial cost, but there was a cost.

The reason my uncle's house needed someone living in it is because he was incarcerated, and not for the first time. There were also two dogs and a cat that needed caring for. So, we were the ones to enlist.

When he was let out on work release in October, he was allowed to look for jobs during the day (from 8am to 2pm) and had to be promptly back or else face the consequences. He also had to pay $100 a week in "rent" whether or not he had a job. My grandma footed the bill for his rent the entire time he was in work release. To make it worse: he never actually got a job. He "got a job" helping out around the place, fixing things, repainting my grandma's house at his own behest, clearing out "junk" from her house without her permission or knowledge, and taking up space on her couch (in a room apart from where she was) in the afternoons.

This entire time he would have questions for Jake and I about what the status of the house was, or he'd have little requests for us to do for him. ...but he would not come to Jake or I about it. He would always go through grandma (mostly) or my parents. Quite frankly, it pissed me off. Jake turned 28 while we lived there, and I turned 26. There is no reason why he could not have come to us himself with whatever questions, queries, or requests that he had.

He also communicated to us through "hints."
One of his dogs, Bozo, a black lab-chow mix, can jump the fence in the yard by an old tree stump. (I could probably jump over the fence at this place too.) To prevent this from happening (and it was a pretty regular occurrence there for a while) we placed a trash can on the stump and would fill it up with a rake's worth of twigs and stuff every time we did yard work.
...well, a few weeks before he was to move in, he came over, moved the trash can off the stump, and placed it directly beside the sidewalk that went from the gate to the front door. Nothing more was said because he hoped we'd get the hint. Later that night, Jake put the can back on the stump. As my boyfriend was leaving to drive me to class during the following mid-morning, my uncle was back out in the yard, raking up the twigs and stuff, and asked, with the typical snark that his voice always projects, "What's with the trash barrel?"
Jake responded in kind: "We put it there to keep Boz from jumping the fence."
No more was said by either party.
My uncle thought it was just an eyesore placed there by some "dumb kids" and wanted it fixed without having to talk to us about it. I noticed today, the second full day of his reoccupation of the house, that the trash barrel is still on the stump. Turns out those kids weren't so dumb after all.

He made our lives hell for four months. I'm not going to dull it down or play it up. It is what it is and so shall it remain.

I wrote him a letter the night before we left and placed it on the kitchen table, along with a framed photograph I snapped of him, my grandma, and my mom at my aunt's funeral last May. (Sidebar: how many other criminals do you know are allowed to get out for a funeral service?) He's aware of how he's made my boyfriend and I feel.

To be fair, it wasn't just us that this affected.
Financially and emotionally, every party in my family has been affected.
...but it's over now.
He's home.
Our crap is out of the house.
I haven't even seen him since Tuesday afternoon.
I don't regret it.

This was supposed to be longer: about the equivalent of three blog posts. I even had plans of what I wanted to say as I was Tweeting about this post, but as Tuesday grew longer and stretched on into the night, my ire ceded to exhaustion. After two nights of less than 6 hours of sleep each night, I am right back in the hole of exhaustion.

And this time, I don't even have a warm comfy bed to sink into.