Just as I'm getting good at this not working thing, Monday looms. It was a very relaxing 4 days off, except for yesterday. I visited my mother yesterday.
My mother is the healthiest 80 year old you may ever meet - yes, she has aches and pains, and complains because she has gained weight and her back bothers her and she can't climb a ladder like she used to, but she's insanely healthy.
One would think that a little old lady like this would be a lot of fun to be around - she's in good health, has all her mental abilities, loves Keith Olbermann and Jon Stewart, is up on current events, lives in a lovely home in a very safe neighborhood, and has money in the bank and sufficient income to be comfortable. Yet visiting her is so draining, I come home exhausted. She is just so goddamn negative, always has been, and she's not going to change at this stage of her life. And she is holding out, holding on, until she can live with me. She basically said so yesterday. That is the only solution to my driving across the state, and that is no solution at all, because I cannot do it. She will refuse to move, and I will refuse to let her move in, so we are at a stalemate.
My mother would rather rehash impossibly trivial memories and incidents involving people who are now gone than talk about anything or anyone alive, or for Godssake DO anything with her days. She has no hobbies, she has no friends, she has nothing, she is sitting there in that house like a vampire who just wants to absorb my life. I am not exaggerating this - the effort of getting her to think about her grandchildren or me or even the dogs or anything that has a goddamn pulse just sucks the life out of me. She can go on and on about something that happened two years ago that didn't mean a goddamn thing even when it happened. I don't mean she talks about dead people in a sweet way, I would be fine with that. Here is an example, taken from yesterday's conversation.
Many months ago, while my father was alive, the car had to go into the shop for repairs (they insisted on buying these Low-End American Land Yachts instead of a nice Honda Accord that would never ask for anything but an oil change) and my father (who died in June) had a doctor's appointment! No, really, that was the substance of the entire long emotional story! She rehashed the inconvenience of her car being in the shop, the stress of it all, the whole goddamn thing, ad infinium, ad nauseam, and you know the end of the story? They took a cab to the doctor. The car was well the next day. This is the level of trivia that she can rehash until those around her want to choke the shit out of her.
And no, this isn't senility - she's also totally up on current events, she is remarkably insightful and sharp when I talk about my job and things going on there, if I can get her the hell off talking about a car repair from last year, she is completely "with it" in every way. But there is a quirk in her brain, and it is hardwired in there because she has been this way since I was a child, that would rather dwell on one trivial problem than think of a thousand good things, and since my father died she has had few new problems, so she is endlessly rehashing shit that didn't matter when it happened, but she can't let it go. I could tell stories about my childhood, but I've repressed them and I really don't want to dig into that scar tissue. Let's just say that this isn't a change in her personality.
Cousin C is the salvation of my sanity right now. She not only validates my perspective on the issues here (I'm not imagining this, she really IS this hard to deal with, it's not me - you have no idea how comforting that is, even at my age). C talks to my mother and is trying her best, as only she can, to get her to get the hell off her butt and DO something, anything, join a support group, go knit for charity, join a book club, just get the fuck out of the house now and then, because my mother is 80 but far from dead. C agrees with me - my mother is going to squat in that goddamn house, holding out for the day that she can move in with me, and C also agrees that this can never be, because, Jesus, she'd drive me insane in a week.
And I keep pointing out to my mother that even if she lived nearby (because under my roof is out of the question, non-negotiable, I'm sorry, I am not going to die of a heart attack at 50 from the stress of immersion in her crazy shit on top of my job every goddamn day) she wouldn't see me much because I am Busy. I have a life, okay, right now it's mostly a job that is killing me, but I am trying to cultivate a social life, and can you imagine bringing a date home to meet my mother, who lives with me? Crazy Aunt Purl only has cats. Laurie, honey? I'll trade ya, anytime!
Another true story from yesterday - I made the classic mistake of trying to make conversation about my own life, and I told her about an outing I'm going on in a couple of weeks, renting a pontoon boat and visiting the manatees. A pontoon boat is the classic Old People Vessel. It is designed for geriatrics who are fond of cocktails. It's not rafting on whitewater, it's a floating patio on a wide, flat river that barely has a current.
Oooh. This is bad. This is dangerous. You don't know what you're doing.
No, I'm serious, that was the response. You can't live with that and not go crazy. I know, because adjust the scenario and that was my entire childhood. She's a nightmare. I know she's my mother and I should love her, but she's an awful, negative, sad person and the worst part is that she chooses to be this way. She will not seek help, she will not take medication, she will not be anything but what she is. She is content to be miserable. And I can't let her suck me into that cesspool of crazy.
From one cesspool of crazy to another - tomorrow is Monday, and I didn't win the lottery yet.
As big of a pain in the ass as it is to have to drive across the state anytime something happens, I'd be glad she lives waaay over there. I can't imagine what life would be like if she lived close to you.
ReplyDeleteI can't either. And if the drive to her house wasn't a dead zone of cellphone coverage where I had to move to the (thankfully level) shoulder of the road when an 18-wheeler came around the curve too fast on the two-lane road yesterday, it wouldn't be so bad. But visiting is a DAY, and not a pleasant, oh, hey, let's pick our favorite restaurant and then walk around the mall kind of outing. It's a tedious drive through nowhere followed by a choice of two open restaurants. Cousin C lives in a much more accessible retirement-oriented town with far more options for a visit afternoon, it would actually be FUN, and it would make so much sense for my mother to move there. C has suggested it, offered it, pointed out the absolutely rock-solid logic of it. My mother won't budge. She complains that C talks too much and is too busy and would drag her out to do things. That is my father's voice, he was annoyed by C, who is lively and fun and always looking for the best out of life, so my mother can't accept that her neice is a lovely, sweet, caring person who would bring fun to her life, because my father pushed her away years ago.
ReplyDeleteI just don't have the time or energy or money to wrestle this shit. It could have been prevented with sensible planning on my parents' part, they had money, resources and brains, but nooo. Thanks, Dad.
Guess what, Babe. You are not obliged to do more than be courteous to your mother and see that she is safe. A schedule of minimal phone calls and fewer visits is Perfectly Legal and Wise. If she is not sick and not pleasant you are not required to spend time with her. Not even by Mother Earth her self! Not Gaia, nor Ceres, nor any of the famed mamas of the world expect you to spoil one perfectly good life to indulge what ought to be another perfectly good life. It’s a sort of algebra problem. Katherine = Mama, NOT Katherine < Mama. Call it family math.
ReplyDeleteAnd if you were to cave in to such silly pressure we would send you to bed without any supper.
My ex-mother-in-law talked about people who had cancer. Not people I knew, people she knew. That had cancer. She always said that if she had her choice when the time came, she would live with my ex-husband. It wasn't the reason for the divorce, but now that I think about it, I'm even happier.
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Well, have a drink and take a deep breath. I plan on being a pain in the ass when I reach 80. My son won't know what hit him.
ReplyDeleteHere's the thing, Patricia. That comment totally misses the reality of the situation. Cousin C used to joke that she was going to sit in her sons' living room, 6 months in each room, in a dark corner, and make a noise like, "Eh-Eh," every now and then. Now that she is getting to that grandma age, she is a widow and they are in their 30s, and she'd never do that in a million years. My mother, OTOH, scarred my early life with depressing, exhausting, crazy behavior and drama that had no basis in reality, and I have stories that would curl your fucking hair, trust me. And now she's at the other end of my life, poised to do the same thing. And I will not let her, but damn, it's so sad and awful that my relationship with my mother has been this way all of my life, and I wish it wasn't so, but it is, and I'm tired and I would love to have a mother that was a mother, even now. And I would rather die than do this to my own kids, because I know how much damage it does.
ReplyDeleteSounds like it really is lucky that she lives across state. The visits can be few and far between for good reason. Eeeks. This doesn't sound like old age - but just a lifelong pattern that really is sad.
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