The thing is, as I bopped about a new town and found my way along unknown streets and hunted for places I'd read about - I liked my life, at that moment. A lot. I liked that me, who can find her way in a place where I know no one, nothing. Nothing but unknowns around every corner. Where my only mission is to see things - find this bus, know which street is next, drive this car up that mountain, catch the boat on some dock in that general vicinity and it will take you to a certain place if you choose the right pier. An adventure with only my wits to guide me. I felt very familiar to myself, and dear. It's been so long since I've been that. And I came back and I didn't want to stop being that person who could honestly say to herself, every minute: I can do this. I'm certain I can do this. Not a doubt in my mind.
My life, right now, my day-to-day normal life, is the exact opposite of that. I have nothing but doubts. I am never sure I can do anything right. Two left feet, constant uncertainty and second-guessing myself, not a single wit to rely on. Small and useless and in the way. All the time, every day. God, I hate it.
Right. So anyway.
My mother has this thing she always did that drove me mad. She'd say, like, "Are you planning on going outside anytime soon?" I'd be in my pj's on a Saturday morning, eating cereal in the kitchen while reading a book - she'd be paging through the newspaper: "Are you going outside anytime soon?" How the fuck are you supposed to answer that? Multiple ways, actually - I'd answer that I was in my pyjamas, what do you mean? Do you want me to get dressed? Outside where, exactly? And on and on.
Eventually I learned to sigh and say "Do you want me to go outside for something?" Very eventually, I'd say, "Jesus, ma, just ask me to go get the mail. PLEASE."
She did it all the time. "Are you going downstairs?" "Did you plan to go to the store today?" "Oh, are you headed to the back yard?" And she would always ask this when you were, like, in the shower, or doing homework, or curled up reading a book in your room. Always when it was really really obvious that you weren't moving for quite some time. Why? Because it was always this runaround way she had of asking anything. Or, as I prefer to call it, a natural and extreme form of passive-aggressive behavior. If she wasn't demanding a thing, she could never just ask someone to do something - it had to be masked as a polite, indirect, off-handed inquiry. Which was phrased in such a way that could never be answered except with a "Oh, did you need me to go outside? Allow me to stop what I'm doing and get clothed and put on shoes and a coat and do you a favor."
I dread that I do this all the time, without knowing it. We're always unconsciously mimicking our parents, after all. I swear to god, if I ever do this, please oh please just kick me in the teeth. Immediately.
Anyway. There's a grand tradition in my mother's family of indirectly pressing a person to do something, and tonight my aunt called me and went on and on about how badly my mother's doing and how no one has visited her in the hospital since last Sunday and she's in so much pain, you'd think Someone would care, etc. etc. If only Someone would visit and help her not to feel like she's just completely forgotten. (You must understand that my aunt is a veritable saint. Seriously. She's sweet and kind and generous and gentle and prim and proper and makes everyone ashamed of themselves - and would be honestly, deeply horrified if she thought she ever made anyone feel ashamed.)
In keeping with my reputation as Family Asshole, I waited for the lull after her 15 minutes of your-poor-mother-isms before I said, "If you want me to go see her, you can actually say it out loud, you know. There's no need to call me Someone." I mean she's a saint and all, but that indirect guilt-trip bullshit drives me fucking mad.
She naturally said, with a sweet earnestness that appalls me: "Why, it's up to you, whatever you want to do, or not do. I wouldn't dream of telling you what to do, I know you wouldn't stand for it a moment. But even if she could just have a phone call..."
Sigh.
Since we've established that the limit for civil phone conversation between my mother and myself tops off at about 14 seconds, clearly I won't be calling her.
But my aunt knows me quite well. I guess this is why she and my grandparents insist on calling me "such a sweet girl" - because my natural inclinations aren't sweet at all, and yet in a pinch, I'm the one who'll turn up sweet when sweetness is most required.
So in the visiting bag: a cheap but warm-n-pretty shawl, two small bottles of sweet-smelling hand lotion, several books chosen for their ability to hold the interest of a natural non-reader, the 2010 Ikea catalog, and (soon to be added) photos from the San Francisco trip. If you can think of anything else that might do, you know my email address. I can use all the help I can get, thanks.
