Strange moments in adulthood.
Feb. 11th, 2004 08:26 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
gementI just... didn't have a fight with my mother. It feels funny, fight or flight all balled up in my stomach. When I'm angry is the only time I'm good at witty repartee, the cutting word, the glancing dig at someone else's behavior. I was furious at certain points this morning. But drama no longer becomes me, if it ever did.
The following is just me processing what happened. I really don't care if anyone else reads it. I just don't write if I don't have an "audience."
The fight starts the standard way; Mom's getting ready to go to work, sees the state of the kitchen, freaks out. She hollers for me; I'm stone asleep. I wake up enough to hear her but not to move. She hollers for![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
garillama, who answers, and I hear them go through the usual parent/teen "I don't have time/You should have made some" dance. I did it many times. I decide to stay out of it.
There's the first new decision, right there. I always leaped into it, my fight or not. It felt good, cathartic, like I was doing something. Staying out of it made me feel cowardly and sick to my stomach. Now I know why Mom and I fighting madelunar__angel feel sick all these years.
Still, I stick with it. I wait until she marches to my door. "Miss Marilee, could you help out in the kitchen this morning?" Translated: Why are you sleeping so darn late? I resent that the state of the house is so low on garillama's priorities, and by your continued sleeping, you're in the same category. (See note at bottom.)
I struggle a response (I still can barely move), and dress, taking just enough time about it that I won't have to share the kitchen with a wild-eyed sixteen-year-old. I go straight to washing dishes.
I quietly endure some many-times heard lectures on how if we all do our parts and don't just wash our one thing, then the kitchen looks much better. Also the one about how it's not just this pan, it's the wiping counters and floor sweeping and other basic maintenance. I politely (and genuinely) agree with her. (I've gotten good at this part over the last two years.) I know she's really hoping that if she repeats it enough times, it will sink into the walls and her recalcitrant children's ears.
I am only a target today because I left my ramen pan in the sink last night and didn't wipe up after it. There was an extenuating circumstance, involving spilling the entire first batch of ramen just before I got to eat it and spending the next hour feeling pissed off and frustrated about it. I do not tell her about the extenuating circumstance right now. I just wash the dishes.
She brings out the big gun. I know she doesn't think it's a big gun. She just needs to bring it up because it's bothering her. I've been fearing this issue coming up for the last week. The following is an echo of an old wound or three: "I'd be a lot more excited about all the time you put in at the library if I saw a little more work put into the kitchen."
A pan slams into the drainer. I collect myself. "Hmm. I'd been noticing myself getting more done around here since I started going to the library every day."
She pauses, aware that she is on dangerous ground. "I guess the things I notice are the counters wiped and the floors swept. The other things haven't been registering. Like what?"
I tell her. It's basic maintenance, the kind she always asks us to do. I also tell her that I will make a point of doing the bits she notices so it's easier to see, and thank her for pointing out her problem and verbalizing what she wants.
From her perspective, all is now defused. There's a hard knot in my stomach. I replay everything in my head twice before saying it to her, censoring for inflammatory words. I make light small talk. I tell her about the ramen disaster last night.
Before she leaves, I spit out some carefully examined words. "Mom, could you do one thing for my inner wombat?" She pauses, hoping this isn't going to be one of my patented parting shots. "Could you say something about how you're happy about my working at the library?"
She laughs nervously, and gets it. She says something wonderful and supportive, and gives me a big hug. I sniffle, and try not to. This should not be a big deal, damn it. Then I post a small novel on LiveJournal replaying the whole thing just to get it out of my system. But I feel much better.
Notes at bottom:
I'm getting a little worried about the sleeping thing. I'm consistently in bed by 11 these days, if not 10, but my body is fighting with all its might to go back to nine hours of sleep a night, preferably from midnight to nine, which was my natural pattern discovered in college.
Were I working a job which required attendance at 9:30 or 10, no problem. But I'm living in a house with an extreme morning person mother who considers sleeping past 8 to be "wasting the day" and starts building up subliminal resentment to anyone that she doesn't see up and around by 7:30 on a daily basis. I guess I need to start setting an alarm or something, for the sake of interpersonal relations.
Other note:
Why is this stupid thing a button? I'll tell you.
First of all, I did the "I don't have time" dance with Mom all through high school, and she kept threatening to cut off my single extracurricular activity, drama club. It was a massive time sink. It was also a huge emotional issue for me.
More specifically, about three years ago when I was in a very emotionally vulnerable place, I spent a few months off college at home, healing my bruised sense of self. I started doing a half hour of yoga every morning. Between that and half an hour of journaling (suggested by Mom), I was spending a very visible hour taking care of myself every morning.
Mom was working at home at the time, and finally told me what was becoming very obvious, which was that she resented all the time I was spending on myself when I wasn't spending it on the house. Something about how sometimes adults don't have time to do all these nice things for themselves, and something about priorities.
All she wanted was for me to also spend time on the house. But that wasn't what came out. What came out boiled down to "stop fooling around with self-care and help me!"
And, in my emotionally vulnerable place, I did exactly that. I couldn't pick up my journal or roll out my mat without thinking of what she said, and putting it away again. I've been angry at her for pushing me like that and at me for listening to her for years now.
I guess I just got that replay people always wish they had. I better go get ready to go into the library.
The following is just me processing what happened. I really don't care if anyone else reads it. I just don't write if I don't have an "audience."
The fight starts the standard way; Mom's getting ready to go to work, sees the state of the kitchen, freaks out. She hollers for me; I'm stone asleep. I wake up enough to hear her but not to move. She hollers for
garillama, who answers, and I hear them go through the usual parent/teen "I don't have time/You should have made some" dance. I did it many times. I decide to stay out of it.There's the first new decision, right there. I always leaped into it, my fight or not. It felt good, cathartic, like I was doing something. Staying out of it made me feel cowardly and sick to my stomach. Now I know why Mom and I fighting made
lunar__angel feel sick all these years.Still, I stick with it. I wait until she marches to my door. "Miss Marilee, could you help out in the kitchen this morning?" Translated: Why are you sleeping so darn late? I resent that the state of the house is so low on garillama's priorities, and by your continued sleeping, you're in the same category. (See note at bottom.)
I struggle a response (I still can barely move), and dress, taking just enough time about it that I won't have to share the kitchen with a wild-eyed sixteen-year-old. I go straight to washing dishes.
I quietly endure some many-times heard lectures on how if we all do our parts and don't just wash our one thing, then the kitchen looks much better. Also the one about how it's not just this pan, it's the wiping counters and floor sweeping and other basic maintenance. I politely (and genuinely) agree with her. (I've gotten good at this part over the last two years.) I know she's really hoping that if she repeats it enough times, it will sink into the walls and her recalcitrant children's ears.
I am only a target today because I left my ramen pan in the sink last night and didn't wipe up after it. There was an extenuating circumstance, involving spilling the entire first batch of ramen just before I got to eat it and spending the next hour feeling pissed off and frustrated about it. I do not tell her about the extenuating circumstance right now. I just wash the dishes.
She brings out the big gun. I know she doesn't think it's a big gun. She just needs to bring it up because it's bothering her. I've been fearing this issue coming up for the last week. The following is an echo of an old wound or three: "I'd be a lot more excited about all the time you put in at the library if I saw a little more work put into the kitchen."
A pan slams into the drainer. I collect myself. "Hmm. I'd been noticing myself getting more done around here since I started going to the library every day."
She pauses, aware that she is on dangerous ground. "I guess the things I notice are the counters wiped and the floors swept. The other things haven't been registering. Like what?"
I tell her. It's basic maintenance, the kind she always asks us to do. I also tell her that I will make a point of doing the bits she notices so it's easier to see, and thank her for pointing out her problem and verbalizing what she wants.
From her perspective, all is now defused. There's a hard knot in my stomach. I replay everything in my head twice before saying it to her, censoring for inflammatory words. I make light small talk. I tell her about the ramen disaster last night.
Before she leaves, I spit out some carefully examined words. "Mom, could you do one thing for my inner wombat?" She pauses, hoping this isn't going to be one of my patented parting shots. "Could you say something about how you're happy about my working at the library?"
She laughs nervously, and gets it. She says something wonderful and supportive, and gives me a big hug. I sniffle, and try not to. This should not be a big deal, damn it. Then I post a small novel on LiveJournal replaying the whole thing just to get it out of my system. But I feel much better.
Notes at bottom:
I'm getting a little worried about the sleeping thing. I'm consistently in bed by 11 these days, if not 10, but my body is fighting with all its might to go back to nine hours of sleep a night, preferably from midnight to nine, which was my natural pattern discovered in college.
Were I working a job which required attendance at 9:30 or 10, no problem. But I'm living in a house with an extreme morning person mother who considers sleeping past 8 to be "wasting the day" and starts building up subliminal resentment to anyone that she doesn't see up and around by 7:30 on a daily basis. I guess I need to start setting an alarm or something, for the sake of interpersonal relations.
Other note:
Why is this stupid thing a button? I'll tell you.
First of all, I did the "I don't have time" dance with Mom all through high school, and she kept threatening to cut off my single extracurricular activity, drama club. It was a massive time sink. It was also a huge emotional issue for me.
More specifically, about three years ago when I was in a very emotionally vulnerable place, I spent a few months off college at home, healing my bruised sense of self. I started doing a half hour of yoga every morning. Between that and half an hour of journaling (suggested by Mom), I was spending a very visible hour taking care of myself every morning.
Mom was working at home at the time, and finally told me what was becoming very obvious, which was that she resented all the time I was spending on myself when I wasn't spending it on the house. Something about how sometimes adults don't have time to do all these nice things for themselves, and something about priorities.
All she wanted was for me to also spend time on the house. But that wasn't what came out. What came out boiled down to "stop fooling around with self-care and help me!"
And, in my emotionally vulnerable place, I did exactly that. I couldn't pick up my journal or roll out my mat without thinking of what she said, and putting it away again. I've been angry at her for pushing me like that and at me for listening to her for years now.
I guess I just got that replay people always wish they had. I better go get ready to go into the library.
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no subject
Date: 2004-02-11 10:11 am (UTC)Um, hang in there? People do change, and learn, and grow, and become more accepting of stuff as they're exposed to it more. If you're still moving to the Seattle area soon, that may end up helping relations with your mother a lot too.
In any case, here's an e-hug and a big YAY for the cool library time you get. *hug* YAY! ^_^