Well, it's moving day. It started pretty good. I made cookies last night for everyone, and I made food today to feed everyone that's been working on the move. My biggest job has been to watch my sister-in-law.
 
I went down a little bit ago, and saw my mother-in-law starting to clear her stuff out of the freezer. She had my youngest brother-in-law's girlfriend helping her. I saw that the new trashcan my husband and I got the other day was cluttering the walking space, so I said I would move it out of their way. I was promptly informed that it wasn't in the way, and then told why.
 
I took it anyway, and came back up here, to the bedroom, where all my good feelings of the last few days started to droop.
 
I've realized that I don't really like my mother-in-law. I care about her, of course. A lot, actually. But I'm having a very hard time liking her. I want a relationship with this woman. She's the only mother figure I have out here.
 
And...well...I lived with her for six months. And she's done more stuff with the girlfriends of her other sons than me. She's closer to them, does more with them, talks to them, they help her with stuff...and...no overtures I make, or try to make, have any effect whatsoever.
 
I was planning on baking her a birthday cake. I planned it for at least a month. I had the recipe picked out, and we'd even bought the ingredients. Then I got sick, and figured I wouldn't have the energy to bake a cake, even if anyone would want to eat it, since I was sick. Well, her friend made her one, and it was absolutely beautiful. I spent the next few days conflicted. She'd already had a beautiful cake. One far prettier than anything I could make for her. But I had the ingredients for a cake, one that I'd been planning on making for her for weeks. I felt like anything I could make after that would be so inferior as to not even be worth attempting. So I made it for my husband and I, and was even happier that I hadn't made it for her, because it turned out awful. The filling oozed out, the ganache puddled on the tray, and it was the ugliest cake I think I've ever made.
 
But that wasn't even really what bothered me.
 
It's that every effort I've made to try and get closer to this woman has failed spectacularly. We're not even friends. Barely acquaintances. We lived in the same house for six months. She never once asked me anything about myself, never expressed an interest in anything I do or have done, and every attempt I've made to be friendly has failed. Yeah, most of my attempts are probably too subtle for her to pick up on. But I'm pretty sure that trying to talk to her on Facebook was obvious enough for most people. She just stopped talking back.She never asks anything of me, never expects anything of me, it's like I'm not even here unless she has to coordinate with who's cooking in the kitchen and when.
 
It's like I don't really exist to her.
 
I miss my mom. The only replacement I have is her, and...she's not acting like a mother. She's not even acting like a friend.
 
That's probably why I've been so uncharitable to her in my journals. I needed something from her, and I've been trying to reach out to her, and it's not been working. I've been met with a brick wall, whichever way I turn. My conclusion has been that she doesn't really like me, either.
 
I've tried doing things in an effort to get her attention, to try and...earn a positive reaction from her. I made dinner once, because she was going to be busy all day at a garage sale. The day before, she'd ordered pizza, I assumed because she was too tired to make food herself. So I thought that I would fix dinner, save her some money on ordering out, and ease her mind about what to feed her kids. I got a sincere thank you, yes, but she still didn't talk to me. Still never asked me to do anything with her, work or fun. Nothing.
 
For months I washed her towels with our laundry. I folded them and put them away, even. Then, when I got sick and couldn't do laundry, she ran out of clean towels. So she ran a load of laundry. But before she started it, she pulled out all of our clothing and left it in the bathroom. Even though I was sick and couldn't do it myself, and even though I had been washing her towels for months, she pulled out all of our clothes and let them sit while she washed only her things.
 
I've offered to help her with things. Only a few times, yes. But I have offered, and every time she dismisses it, saying that it doesn't need to be done, or they're almost done already.
 
And through all of this, all of my efforts to try and be friendly, to be a good daughter-in-law, she was talking to and doing things with the girlfriends of my brothers-in-law. She needs their help. She'll talk to them. But I live with her, and she won't do that with me? She knew my oldest brother-in-law's girlfriend for years. But that doesn't change the fact that we shared living space, slept twenty feet away from each other, and she couldn't even ask me how I was adjusting to the move. She never once bothered to ask if I was homesick, or missing my family.
 
I guess I don't need to wonder why I have such...negative feelings toward her anymore. I just wish there was something I could do.