well, it was unavoidable; my grandma pulled me in for another one of her "talks" which basically consist of me standing there uncomfortably while she unloads all her "concerns" but doesn't leave any room for me to give my side of things. it's the "pity me, i'm a poor old christian woman with an unwanted houseguest" show again.
thus far, i have lived here without paying rent because the goal was for me to save money so i could move out. i pay for my own groceries and anything else i need, and if she wants/needs payment for anything she does do for me, i give it to her no questions asked. meanwhile, i spend as little as i can manage because i don't make a lot of money working a part-time retail job. i don't make enough to even get an apartment that isn't income-based, and while i have been searching for those and trying to contact them, it's not been all that easy. most have no availability, on top of having some pretty sketchy backgrounds. one right next to our neighborhood had a fatal shooting take place right in the parking lot. another that i was really eager to get into was burned to the ground by an arsonist.
i have a LOT on my plate right now on top of trying to find a place to live. i'm also trying to figure out what to do about future job/career goals (i know what i want to do, but i need something better than what i have now to hold me over until i'm able/ready to meet my actual goals--but there's not a lot open to someone with so little job experience and no higher schooling). i have multiple doctors to juggle, and an illness that nearly cost me my job. i have transition to worry about. i just took my first shot the other day and i'm trying to hide that from her.
she knows that i have been talking to my doctor about treatment, and that i'm also talking to a counselor about "gender stuff". she doesn't know i've already gotten my prescription, because she threw a fit when she heard that there were already talks with the insurance company about having it covered. so i made sure not to tell her when i got the prescription filled and actually started the treatment, because i don't have the strength to deal with her and the stress she's been causing me over this lately.
so back to the "talk": she threw out her favorite line, "something's gotta change", because despite my progress in finding a job, getting a car, paying literally everything but rent, and looking for housing, i am still here. it doesn't matter that i am working my ass off to not be here. it doesn't matter that i am a responsible adult and do not go around asking her to do things for me. it doesn't matter what i do: she sees me as a non-adult. she treats me like a brainless child; she even asked me if i'd had an "accident in my pants" one day when i came home during lunch break to change clothes because of a coffee spill. and she constantly talks about how i "need to be thinking about my future", etc etc, as though i'm not already doing any of that. i've stopped telling her anything because everything i do tell her goes in one ear and out the other. but this one really takes the cake.
"something's gotta change" turned into "if you're still here after the first of next year, i'm charging rent". that would be perfectly reasonable if she treated me like an adult with privacy and basic respect and just legitimately needed help with the bills. but not only is that not the case; the reason i suspect she's actually charging rent all of a sudden now is because of transition. she doesn't know i've already started, but she knows i'm planning to and she's getting more and more nosy about my doctor visits to the point that i told her my upcoming visit was "just counseling".
during her speech, she made it out like she's struggling to pay her bills while i'm just sitting on top of a pile of money and not doing anything with it. her reasoning was "i was allowing you to save money so you could go to school or move out, but since you're not doing that, you need to start helping out around here". lately, she's also been making a lot of weird little jabs at me about having money. if i said i couldn't afford something, she'd make a point of saying that i can, and that i have a bunch of money i'm not spending. she would try to encourage me to do things that would cost a lot, like going on a vacation. and if i tell her that the only reason i have any money at all is because i am saving every penny i can in order to move out, she'll just fall back on "well, you're still here, aren't you?" it's ridiculous. she's angry that i have money, even though i don't actually have money. pretty much the second i do get moved out, all my savings will be GONE. i don't even make enough per month to come close to covering rent for a normal apartment, much less a real house. everything i've saved over the past few years that i've been here is going to be eaten up within the first few months by application fees, utility bills, rent, and all the other little things i'm going to have to do once i get settled into a place of my own. i'll be living paycheck to paycheck, just like she claims to do, so i really don't appreciate being treated like some gold-hoarding dragon. if you want to charge rent, just do that instead of making petty little jabs at me for not blowing all my cash on frivolous things (like she does all the time, ironically enough--i can't feel sorry for her financial situation because i've seen what she spends her money on).
but now that transition is a looming reality, she's gone from taking jabs to "putting her foot down". i don't care about having to pay rent. i was smart enough to appreciate having a place to stay rent-free while i had it, and that was the ONLY reason i was here in the first place. i know not to take something like that for granted. what pisses me off is the way she's doing it. first i get a long speech about how she doesn't support "what i'm doing to myself", complete with all her religious opinions and sob story about how much she's been praying about this, then i get hit with the rent speech directly afterward. it's pretty obvious that the two are related.
the only good thing to come of this is that she offered to ask one of her friends who owns a rental house about the possibility of having it fixed up so that it's livable again if i agreed to pay a year's rent for it in advance. i will absolutely not be able to afford it beyond that point unless my friend agrees to be my roommate and gets a job to help cover expenses, but if that did go through, it would be a lot better for me than living in a dangerous low-income apartment on my own. i'm not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, so i'm not about to complain to her about anything else as long as this is a possibility. i need this.
i have no intention of being here next year, but i have no idea how long it will actually take to get moved out once i do find a place--never mind how long it will take me to find one. so if/when i do end up stuck here and paying rent, i don't doubt she's gonna find out real fast that all my quietly putting up with the way she's treated me over the years has been because of that fact. the fact that i wasn't paying rent and was technically a guest. if i'm paying rent, i'm gonna expect more professional treatment and some level of autonomy over the space i'm paying for. she will be landlord, not grandma. not that she's been much of a grandma throughout my life...
just needed to vent. would you believe i was trying to keep it short? there's a lot more to this that i just didn't have room for, so i condensed it to the most relevant parts. :^P
