The Midnight Call from a Broken Parent and the Guilt of Wanting to Hang Up

Dear Delyara, My mother called at 11:45 PM tonight, her voice already slurred from the gin she keeps hidden behind the baking ingredients in her pantry. For forty minutes, I sat on my kitchen floor in the dark, listening to her repeat the same bitter, circular complaints about her neighbors, her health, and the father who left us twenty years ago. I didn't say anything; I just made the appropriate noises at the right intervals, feeling an incredible, heavy mix of rage and guilt twisting in my stomach. I want to save her, but I can’t. And the dark truth—the secret I can’t tell anyone—is that every time her name flashes on my phone screen, my entire body clenches with resentment. I am spending my own limited emotional energy trying to keep a sinking ship afloat, and it is slowly dragging my own sanity down into the water with it.