An Exercise in Perspective
My Mother is slowly driving me insane.
No, not slowly. It’s more like that saying “getting nowhere fast”. Revving the engine to 8000 RPMs at a five-minute long stop light. Loud and sounding fast but going nowhere. AKA MADDENING.
She gets angry if I don’t buy the groceries she wants, yet she doesn’t want to pitch in money for groceries. She empties the dishwasher in a huff because Husband and I are too tired and are putting off. Then she puts everything away in a weird new arrangement that we’ve NEVER had the dishes in and leaves us searching for simple items. (You know it’s bad when I’m calling both Husband and Mama to find where the can opener has ended up.) She doesn’t like it when we have friends over more than once every other month (”I like the quiet”) but talks incessantly when we’re home, to the point that Husband and I now look at her and say gently “Quiet time, now”. She calls me on break at work or while I’m out and about to talk about recipes and shallots and what we need to get when we go grocery shopping again. (Again? I just went four days ago!) She doesn’t remember half of what anyone tells her and gets mad at you when you get upset because she messed up because she forgot what you told her in the first place!
ARG!
But then there are those things that make her so endearing, which tempers my bubbling inferno of madness. She’s the kind of woman who gets everyone drinks before she sits down at the table. If she gets herself Chinese food, she’ll buy some for us too - even if we had other plans, she’ll just put it in the fridge for us. She’s generous, has a quirky sense of humor and an incredible laugh to match. We go to the movies together (both “Becoming Jane” and “The Transporter”) and share books. She cooks and cleans and listens to my whining, though she whines quite a bit herself! She calls my Husband “my son”, adores my Zoë (she’s her “granddog” and is treated nearly like a grandchild) and I know will spoil my little Miriam to as a Grammy should.
Family is a mixed bag. I get that. I embrace it. They can drive you completely insane and yet be all the comfort and joy you seek in this world. And how I try to remember that each time I open the cupboard to find the glasses in yet another statistically impossible new arrangement never before seen or she’s gets upset because she has to buy her own $5 worth of fruit…
December 10th, 2007 at 3:23 pm
Oh MS,
This made me laugh because my family is pretty froot loops too. But like you said, you have to remember the comfort and joy they bring you too - especially during the times they are driving you batty.
That’s funny about the new arrangement for glasses. My roomie does that all the time. I never know where the heck my stuff will end up next. Weird.
Annie
I tease her that she has Alzheimer’s. She gets mad and says “You’ll regret that if I do get Alzheimer’s!” I laugh and tell the doctor, “Well, duh! Now what do we do?”
I’m a hard nut to crack despite (or because of?) my nutty heritage.
- mercurial