Thursday, August 4, 2016

Between you and your God

Mom often comes and sits in my bedroom. I think she just wants company, so I don't drive her away (except that one time she wouldn't stop talking shit about the rest of the family). I don't engage her because I know that only leads to her baiting me into an argument. I sometimes hush her when she tries to talk over the TV. She has attempted countless times to have a conversation. I don't care. We are not friends. I am her caregiver out of kindness and my own feelings of obligation. I feel bad for her because she has no one else, but I also am aware that she has driven everyone else away. I know that she always blames the other person when they abandon her. Maybe that's why I feel such obligation, but that's irrelevant. This isn't about me. She needs help. I give help. She needs companionship. She doesn't do what is necessary to have it. I cannot control that. I cannot control her. I do often try to explain another person's perspective in hopes that she'll allow me to mediate, but it's just a waste of time. 

The other day, while I prepared breakfast, she made her usual comments about the morning news. She said she wished that someone would shoot Trump. In the next breath, she said she prays that I will hit the lottery. I wanted to tell her to stop - stop praying for me with the stink of murderous thoughts on you. I'm not sure how she can believe that God would (if he was in the business of granting wishes like a genie) grant both a wish to end another person's life and a wish for financial gain. I wanted to repeat what she said back to her so she could hear how crazy she sounds, but I've done that before without the desired effect so I did not bother. I just remained silent. She continued with her running commentary on everyone else's life, and I just let her. It would be disrespectful for me to say what I am thinking, and it would only incense her. What's the point?

When she's being nice, I automatically reinforce my defenses. She has an agenda for everything she does. If she is trying to make me relax, it's because she is planning an attack. I am not fooled by these tactics anymore. Forty-two years have finally taught me everything I need to know about her. She feels malice towards any object of her affection. She is angered by love. Expressions of love are taken as signs of weaknesses to be exploited. She is so different from me. I don't know how I grew up to be kind and compassionate under the rule of someone so manipulative. Then again, I always looked elsewhere for guidance. With her there is only criticism and cruelty. I tried so hard to hide everything that I am from her. Now she depends on the qualities she fought so ferociously to diminish in me. I'm certain that the same God she prays to finds that irony amusing as much as I am certain that she doesn't even see it.

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