This Independence Day has been interesting to say the least. Banter with my mother has become the usual, and I don’t engage as much anymore as I have previously written.

Today I woke up aprox 7:00 am, and stayed in bed for an hour. I had a couple Toaster Strudels as the dishes haven’t been done for whatever justification. Attempting to not nag, I let it go for the fifth day of not having some cereal. She does the dishes, at least that’s what was agreed upon since it’s been over a year the dishwasher broke, just out of warranty.

I went in to the living room about 8:30 to watch some second rate show on the Science Channel with pretty-boy Mike Rowe doing the sound on tape or SOT for the narrations. I stayed into the 9:00 airing, then went back to my room to take almost a complete nap as I was tired after 3 weeks of my bedroom makeover, that is still not finished, at least 85% of it is.

I came down to also tell her I wasn’t interested in going to the parade in town for a number of reasons. We decided to leave at 1:00 or so to go to Londonderry to check in with gram at the grave at the cemetery. Before that she realized I was sleepy, and she was sleepy too – so then she started to become co-dependent in the sense of “you’re tired too?” in the sense that the decisions for the day would be based on physical feelings of the 2, not using the pair and get outside and then start the day. Just because I don’t feel like going out, is not a reason to go see my grandmother who I haven’t gone for a while.

Oh my gawd, her luck is horrible. The cutout for the casket has seriously looks neglected, I am waiting for the Town to contact the family for allowing weeds to grow, with an assumption of gaslighting because the town hasn’t properly sod and regrown the grass. The week following her burial, we had a heatwave going into October, and all the traditional New England growing norms has been thrown out of the window given the change of climate in the last decade to these extremes. The weeds are over a couple feet tall. The Cemetery department has a part time staff where the extension at the Town Hall I think is a general voicemail box, because the town never had many direct numbers assigned from the phone company.

Without reliving the technological trauma in Londonderry muni government; my mother was talking out loud without realizing it when I started to kindly redirect my mother, and she told me “I’m talking to my mom” in the possessive sense.  We took the ride back home through Manchester, and on the ride back I talked about my other family member I’ve been discussing, it’s a sticky subject, because it got brought up about the discussion of fathers. In one topic, I said that the way my father denied he created me, and only admitted to it after I was born, was the ultimate betrayal for me, but the mother then said her father abandon her in her twenties seemed to be the ultimate.

Without much more, I STFU and agreed to disagree for the umpteenth time. Jiimmy Crickets, I should be in a social credit score of in the negative of 4  figures at this point being so much in debt to the loyalty of my mother. Later in the day, she then went to the psych ward to only find out my family member had a really rough day, meanwhile back at home base I had to do some work, as I’ll be out with my mother later today for at least 1/2 of the day with other family members. I forgot about that, so regardless, had to rearrange tasks so I was working on a holiday. (Go with the flow right?)

When she came home after it, we had the Boston Pops 4th of July special on Channel 7 (figured Bloomberg may give the very sensory overload of flat graphics masquerading as “data” during the commercial break) and just sticked with 7.

So she started telling me what happened, and basically I have to listen to the full play by play situation, at the proper timeline, OR, she has to tell me in midst of my breath AND one other thing in between. Normally conversations start with “X situation” and I ask and “Y said?” but she talks to me as if she’s basically broadcasting her mind and I have to be the listener without any interactivity.  There is so much little-things that happen where she wants to share the reaction of the care team, but I get it the cutieness but it gets to her head. Another thing I noticed was a statement of “what I said was [X]” meaning she was using a conflict resolution line when there was no conflict at all, other than an out of whack flight-or-fight scenario or she is highly combattive and disagreeable (I think the personality was the reason why an “i-statement” followed).

Notice that I emphasized “OR” or “AND” the heightened undertones is to shut up and let her finish her already 90 second to 2 minute speel that you have to listen and agree with. She allows no one to have a quick and appropriate follow up question, or she “forgets” then repeat the entire story in verbatim again. No I am not talking about myself, it’s my mother. While I can’t be pissed when she can’t wrap a story like a Christmas present (must be the journalist inside of me that makes me notorious socially), I have to listen her drone on with her mixed play by play stories.

When I was eating Frosted Flakes for a nibble, the TV was muted, and her HSP kicked in, feeling some shake, I saw her stare near me, I looked at her, she told me what she felt, my voice went I in panic, and she got pissed at me. The disregulated self of me got activated as she gets highly sensitive, and I freak out as a natural reaction, and I get flack. This isn’t the first time she did this, it happened 10 days before.

I took a shower after 10:00 and recomposed myself realizing I must’ve spent a total of over 5 hours with her today, and I was at my limit, came down right in time for the fireworks 50 miles south of home base on TV the way my Gram would be watching at that time where we would be coming home stuck in traffic for a couple hours from our own fireworks in town that’s only a couple miles away.

I fear part of my mother has “broke down” in recent years where her cluster-b-like personality has really gone out of control. She refuses to get help, and has refused help with hospice care, and always talks about reaching out to the community gal for resources, but never takes the time or the effort to reach out.

I would have more sympathy if she would try to acknowledge any course-corrections, but no, she keeps sticking to the D-line perceived to bitch, whine and air her grievances with the system, meanwhile I can’t bitch about how my fucking female cousin doesn’t have a pair to settle the differences and see her father before the memories get completely purged with the dementia. And she’s serving in the Army at a base 2 hours away from where we live.

Excuses. excuses and more EXCUSES, I mean justify, Justify and more JUSTIFY

As you can tell, these situations where my mother isn’t fully “listening”  (read validating and showing empathy) and doing lots of grievances with the system and feeling this co-dependency, I am now working on a literal escape route away from my mother outlining all the risks and/or benefits that would be from leaving here. I hate to say this, but my grandmother felt similary with her. Ironically my mother suggested shed kick out my grandmother in between one of the hospital stays as a solution, when I took the responsibility that I should be moving out.

Yes my grandmother died too, but you haven’t heard me use her casket as a cover for acting out of line. Do I get any credit or support or a hand to hold? Fuck no. This is driving me nuts. I need to build a contingency plan when our relationship escalates to SHTF.

Thanks to the people who allow me to write 1,400 words in under an hour to vent of a situation I humbly say is a bit of an injustice but never say it in the moment and expect no credit because I’m a nice-guy.