I know you don't like me...

Things I'm used to hearing from my Mother:

"I know you don't like me."
"I know you don't care about me."
"I know you hate me."
"I know you don't care about what I think."

Only one of those four sayings is incorrect. I do NOT hate her. Hate is a wasted emotion, in my opinion. I've wasted my emotions and my energy--both mental and physical--on hatred over too many years. I refuse to give her that power, that right, or that control. When I hate, the only one who is hurt by that is me.

I will own the fact that I do not like my Mother as a person or a family member. If we were strangers or casual acquaintances and I would not give any of my time or energy to her.

I don't care about her any more than I do a near stranger. I care about her a lot less than I care about other members of my family such as my Sister, my Father, my Aunt Sarah and many of my cousins: Carol, Sue, Shelley, and Jay. I care more for many close and dear friends who have become my family of choice. They along with other family have long since filled the gaping whole left by a mother incapable of nurturing love.

I do not care what she thinks. About anything. I don't care what she thinks about me--in fact I find most of it laughable. I don't care what she thinks about the world at large, because it's weighed down with her willful ignorance and arrogance. I do not care what she thinks about herself--it seems obvious to me she loathes herself. Bottom line is I do not care what she thinks because I do not respect her as a person.

However, none of those; NONE of those are a reason for me to not make sure she has the competent and humane medical assistance she needs.

A few people have asked me why I'm going up there when my Mother so hatefully pushes me off. That push off is spawned by her own self loathing, her own fractured perception of me, and her own fear of what's about to happen to her. She's scared, she's angry--you add that to bitter and to someone of such stunted emotional growth and you have a badger with a sore nose. That's just noise to me.

I'm going because when she went through this in 1997, the doctors fucked up her leg. Her knee replacement went fine, but they damaged beyond repair the nerves in her lower leg and in her foot. It's the reason she has been on a cane all these years. After that experience I do not BLAME her for being scared. 14 years later--different hospital--different doctors--advancements in medicine. I hope this does not happen to her again, no one deserves that and I WANT to be there to hear first hand, the outcome of this operation.

My father does not need to sit there alone. My Mother would rather he sit there alone than with me because she fears what he and I speak of when she's not there. She can't control the message and she fears that as much as she fears the surgery. A hospital waiting room is not the stage upon which I need to burden my Father with a litany of everything Mother's done to me all my life. And I'm not there to do nothing but bitch about her--but she is sure that is all I do.

My choices surrounding my Mother often come down to this: I do what I expect of myself, not what I expect of her.