My mom and I have had a, let's say, complex relationship. My whole family is a big emotionally tangled heap of complexity that's too much to get into right now. There were moments in my life when I seriously considered a permanent break with my mother. So I consider it somewhat of a triumph (of what, I'm not sure - me? forgiveness? maturity?) that I can relate to her now on a pretty normal mother-daughter level. At least in relation to the worst parts of our past. I accept her for who she is - a flawed person who happens to be my mom.
I have to admit, though, that I'm a little envious of her relationship with my 13 year old sister. They are close in a way that Mom and I never were. They have an ease with each other that seems foreign to me, like I'm looking in on another family. I'm happy for my sister that she has that ability to be open and honest with our mother, and I suppose I'm even proud of my mom for developing that kind of relationship with her. But a little part of me is a tiny bit bitter that she couldn't offer that to me, when I needed it just as much. I was very alone in the world at the age of 13, and not very close to anyone. Or at least that's the way I remember it. But I guess that is something that, ironically, came out of my parents' divorce (which came when I was grown) - they have that single mom & daughter closeness that kids with married parents often don't get.
So yesterday I waited for them to wake up - they sleep in in the morning and for the past two days haven't been ready to go until after 11am. I'm up at 5:30 every day. It's kind of nice because I have the morning to myself to play on the computer and get work done, but it's also a slight annoyance because I feel like half the day is gone before we get around to seeing each other. Mr. Ibis is working this week, but I kept my schedule light (meetings only) so we could hang out.
I picked them up at their hotel yesterday and tried to take them on a scenic drive. I headed up into the countryside to show them a pretty lake area and something started dragging under my car. I pulled over and we saw that some kind of pan was hanging down and scraping against the road. I of course was thinking, Fark me, what else can go wrong in my life?? (I know, my negative thoughts are out of control.) My sister shimmied underneath the car and pinned it back up somehow so we could get it to a repair shop. We made it to the shop and left it there to be fixed, and walked across the street to the Village Inn... kind of gross, but it was close and we were on foot in 50 mph winds (Nebraska weather).
My car was ready by the time we were done with lunch, and even better, they didn't charge me for replacing the nuts & bolts that had rusted out! Just for fun, I brought them to the Humane Society to look at the animals, since it was right around the corner. The dog room was closed, but they love cats, so we looked at all the kitties and some bunnies too. Then I had to run to a coworker's house to borrow something for work, so we drove down in the direction of her house and my mom's hotel. When I was done picking up my stuff, I asked what they wanted to do and my mom said to drop them off at the hotel.
It was only 3pm and only their second full day here. I asked repeatedly if they didn't want to go anywhere else, or at least come to my house to hang out and let me cook dinner for them. My sister joined me in begging my mom to go to my house. But no, no, no, my mom insisted I drop them off. She framed it as not wanting to burden Mr. Ibis and I, but I suspected that she really did just want to be left at the hotel for the night.
Frustrating. Yet not surprising. I had warned my husband that she might be that way. My mom is kind of anti-social and very easily fatigued by being around people... even family. It annoys me, but I don't want to overtax her if she can't hang all day. I just don't really get it. I am an introvert myself, but they're my family. It's different for me - but not her, I guess. The way I see it is she traveled 1400 miles to be here, why does she want to sit in a hotel room for 18 hours at a stretch? We aren't going to be able to see each other very often - for the rest of our lives, it will be once a year most likely. But that makes no difference to her... she still wants to sit in her room smoking and drinking tea I guess. Some things never change.
When Mr. Ibis got home and I explained why I wasn't with them, he was even more frustrated than me, which I knew he would be. He didn't get to see them at all yesterday and he was so looking forward to it all day. He wanted to drive down and at least pick up my sister. But I convinced him to just let them have this one night, if Mom wanted, to be alone. But then - maybe this is inconsiderate, I don't know - we kind of scheduled the rest of the week to prevent this from happening again. We have a lot of places we want to take them and we want to spend time with them, so sitting at the hotel room every night is not going to work - especially since Mr. I works all day. Mom's going to have to suck it up for one week.
1 comment:
I know we've discussed this before but our mommies are BFF at heart. My heart breaks for you because I know how hard this is! You're totally in my thoughts and prayers!
My mom ALWAYS tries to take me shopping when she visits and sometimes I don't know how to explain that all I want is for her to tell me that I'm doing a good job or she's proud of me. That's it. Compliments, not shoes.
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