So okay, a wee little bit of a rant here.
About a month or two ago, my mom found out that she was getting a free flight to Chicago. So, she decides to flit out to Chicago, which is about 2-3 hours from where I live. The plan is to get Grandma from Dayton to Chicago and the two of them will "party" in Chicago for a few days. The second part of the plan is for me and A to drive into Chicago and visit for the weekend. My response is, well it depends on whether or not A has to work that weekend.
Long story short, that weekend is the first week that AM General goes to mandatory 10 hour a day weeks PLUS it's the first weekend that they had to work on Saturday as well (and missing that Saturday - for any reason other than hospitalization is a firing offense). In addition, I have to serve at church that Sunday and it's the first Sunday that there is literally no one else who can serve that weekend except me.
So after much discussion, I call Mom and tell her that there's really just no way that we can drive in to Chicago that weekend -- it would have to be after 2:00 on Saturday, so we'd get to Chicago around 5 - but it would be crazy traffic time (even on Saturday), so we probably wouldn't really get to their hotel (on the far west side of town) until 6 or so. We'd have one hour to spend before we had to get back in the car and head back home. Sunday would be even worse because we'd have to leave early early evening so that A could get a full night's sleep before being at work by five a.m. -- that means getting up at 3:30 a.m. to get to work on time.
Now, Mom lives a good thousand miles away, so I offer a compromise: why doesn't she and Grandma take the train into town, planning on getting to South Bend around 1 p.m. on Saturday and then take the last train back? That was the only way I could see for us to get to spend any time together.
So, Mom says, yeah, cool. She calls me Friday night . . . the evening before she's going to come over. I've been frantically cleaning the house. Yes, she verifies they'll be there in the morning. I'm excited. I continue cleaning the house.
11 a.m. on Saturday morning, she calls and says, no, she can't come in to South Bend because it takes too many train changes and she thinks they'll have to either stay overnight (oh no!) or not stay long enough to make the trip worth it.
Okay, now I'm disappointed. I've cleaned everything for two days to get ready for her and I'm excited to have them see our house. But, I also understand . . . I just wish she'd looked up this stuff earlier in the week when I asked her to instead of leaving it until Saturday morning. At the very least, she should have told me Friday night. But, *sigh* I'm pretty much used to this from her.
"Why don't you and A just drive in to Chicago?" she asks. I about drop the phone. We've gone over this about 15 times now. But, I dutifully explain again that we just can't manage it time-wise this weekend and there's no way around it.
"Why don't you come by yourself?"
"I told you, Mom, I will NOT drive in Chicago -- it's horrible and it terrifies me."
So the conversation continues with way crazy amounts of mom-guilt. "I'm travelling 1000 miles and you can't travel the last 100 to see me????"
Much frustration on both parts, but finally I thought we got to a good place: neither of us was actually happy about the situation. It did suck that mom was so close and I couldn't get over there to see her, but such is life sometimes.
Fast forward to last week. A has been planning a trip to Chicago for us for months -- it's being interrupted by a trip to Dayton, Ohio to see my sister as she makes the cross-country trek from Dallas to New York City, laying over in Dayton at our aunt's house for a few days of relaxation before they complete the trek.
First night that we're all at my aunt's house, my grandma calls my mom so we can all talk - kind of a nice family get-together even though Mom's still a thousand some odd miles away.
Mom and Grandma talk. Mom and Jenny talk. Jenny hands the phone to me.
"Young lady, what are you doing going to Chicago now?"
First words out of her mouth. I'm stunned, shocked. Here I thought she finally understood that we could not work out the schedule the one weekend that she could be in town. Nope, she thinks I did it just to spite her. She lets me know quite clearly that I "obviously" didn't go to Chicago that weekend just to hurt her -- it didn't have anything to do with the fact that we couldn't get there that weekend.
"Well, why didn't you take a vacation two months ago when I was there?" is her response to my pointing out that we're actually both on vacation this week.
I try explaining that A doesn't really get vacations - she gets time off when the plant goes to shutdown, but that's it. And I didn't have enough PT time accrued when she was in town.
"Hmph."
I hurriedly get off the phone. You'd think I had done all of this specifically to hurt her. For someone with a cruddy self-esteem, she sure seems to think the world centers around her.
It'll probably be another couple of months before we speak again. Maybe she'll be in a better mood then. But there's no telling. These random spikes of irrationality have been a pattern with her ever since I was tiny.
Posted by Red Monkey at July 18, 2005 8:06 PM |
Never Underestimate the Power of Human Stupidity
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Man that sucks. I mean really sucks. It is unfair and manipulative as hell. I hope that did not hang over your trip. You don't deserve that crap. The sad thing is that your mother is truly mentally ill so it is hard to discern between the behavior that stems from the illness and the truly selfish behavior. >>
July 19, 2005 10:39 PMasimonini said:
Is your mother MY mother? I just returned from a trip to Arlington...yes, I went by your old house!...and I have similar stories. Except that my mom was only two houses away and didn't want to see me...I can't imagine why, as I am so fascinating:)
July 27, 2005 2:16 PManeka said:
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December 26, 2005 12:26 PM
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