At 53, with my mother aged 80, I find myself caught in a twilight existence, neither free nor entirely bound. I share this not for sympathy but because exhaustion has worn me thin, like threadbare fabric. Perhaps someone out there knows this feeling—or has an answer I haven’t yet found.
I still work, retirement a distant speck on the horizon. My mother lives with me. She isn’t bedridden or helpless—no, she washes herself, cooks, even strolls to the shops or the park. Yet she feeds on my energy like a phantom leech, draining me drop by drop.
By evening, I return from work hollowed out, a spent teabag. I sit with her, sipping Earl Grey, listening to her recount her day. All I crave is to vanish into my room, drown in the glow of the telly, and let sleep swallow me whole. But no. She waits. Not for chatter—for sermons. As if I’m still fifteen, still under her thumb.
*”If only you’d listened and married Jeremy, not that waste of space you chose,”* she sighs, the record forever skipping. *”You’d have children, a proper life. Instead, you’re alone. Unwanted. Lucky to have me at all.”*
No children. A husband who fled—or, more truthfully, was driven out. We married, moved in together. One month after Mum descended upon us with her steamer trunks and opinions, he filed for divorce. Can I blame him? To her, renting a flat while owning a three-bedroom house was sheer madness.
So here we are, just us and the echoing rooms. Separate beds, shared kitchen, shared suffocation.
Every move scrutinised:
*”Why so late?”*
*”What possessed you to buy that rubbish?”*
*”My laundry’s still piled up. Why haven’t you changed the sheets?”*
*”You forgot to feed Biscuit again.”*
Never a *”thank you,”* never a *”well done.”* Just a endless loop of disapproval, from dawn till lights-out.
Leaving isn’t an option. My wages wouldn’t cover a shoebox in Croydon. Even if I scraped together the rent—how could I live with myself if something happened to her? Yet sometimes, in the quietest hours, I imagine vanishing. Not forever. Just long enough to breathe without guilt nipping at my heels.
Yes, it’s monstrous. She’s my mother. I owe her my life. But the weight of it all feels like drowning in slow motion.
Where does duty end and martyrdom begin?
Do I have the right to feel this way?
I don’t know. But I know I can’t go on like this.
