I was going to tell you about how I locked my two dogs and myself out of the apartment on the hottest day of the month but since my conversation with my mother Saturday, I’m not thinking about anything else.
My brother called me to tell me that my mother wanted to get together for dinner. Of course, I should have gotten the hint that something was up when he said he wanted me to call her to tell her Friday would be suitable. My brother likes to avoid my mother when she’s at the height of her moods.
I call her and it turns out she thinks my relationship with my brother is diminishing. Apparently she was informed that it has been 2 monthes since my brother and I spoke. I'm still not sure who told her that. In fact my brother and I had a conversation on Friday. We speak weekly.
She began telling me that any relationship issues are the fault of the woman and should thus be my duty to regain my personal relationship with my brother. She then pointed that I ruined my relationship with her and she didn't want that to happen to my brother and me. This of course led to a two hour argument.
I won’t go into details because it will only cause me to get angrier. In summary, I asked her how she expects our relationship to be. She summarized it and I told her that I thought that what she expects is not a relationship with a parent and child but more of a manservant to his master. I told her that if that’s what she wants and will make her happy, I will oblige but it will never be a substantial relationship. She got off the phone happy. I got off the phone with a stomach ache.
I know now that I’ve been trying to make something with my mother that isn’t possible. I was trying to have an adult relationship with my mother. She can never see me as an adult. She will never see me as a woman, a friend or a daughter.
Now I suppose most people would not have let it get this far and just sucked it up and said, “Mom’s crazy. Just do what makes her happy.” I didn’t. I couldn’t and still have issues with it. Why?
I figured out why on Sunday. I’m afraid. I’m afraid that if I play the game like everyone around her does, I may start to believe it and in return, I’d turn into my mother.
I don’t want to live in my head. I don’t want to think everyone is out to get me. I want to embrace realism and live life with hints of fantasy not the reverse.
The saddest point in the weekend was when I had wished I never called my mother and didn’t have to speak to her again. I know. It even looks worse on paper (pseudo-paper).
I can’t just runaway though. If I did, I’d be like her when life became too real for her. Besides, she’s my only mother. I have to remember that it's the illness that makes her think they way she does. If it makes her happy, I’ll call her every other week like I used to.
You ever have a conversation with someone and leave feeling older, tired and exhausted? That’s how I feel after I talk to her. I feel like an apple left out in the sun: brown, wrinkled and dehydrated.
This is my small tribulation and if I ignore it, I will be less of the person I should be.
Tomorrow, I’ll return to happy shiny Pantrygirl and will share with you my survivor story. What happens to an Obsessive Compulsive, Anal Retentive woman locked out of her apartment with two pooches, no money and no cell phone? Find out tomorrow...
