And your point is?

It's the strangest thing when a difficult parent is seriously ill. There's this push and pull that cannot be appreciated by someone who hasn't experienced it.

One minute your stomach is in knots and you're frightened for their life, doing anything you can to help them live. The next you're like, "did you really just say that to me after I just saved your life?"

Is it that they don't appreciate us or is it that they just don't appreciate their life? Is it that they know we'll always be there for them so shitting on us repeatedly has no risk?

Although never surprised at my mother's complete disregard for my feelings, I am always perplexed by it. How can she not care how hurt I am? How my own child feels, especially how I am making him feel, means more to me than anything else. I would never put anyone ahead of my child. Never have and never will.

Is it because I am adopted that my mother has such disregard for me? I don't think so though I do think my mother should have been screened more thoroughly, even though I realize there are worse mothers out there. At this point in time she'd likely not admit or remember it but she told me a long time ago, in a way that was meant to be critical of the social worker who was involved in my adoption, that she'd almost not gotten me. The social worker had said she was worried my mom was too intent on getting a baby just like the first one she'd adopted. My mom thought the social worker was wrong. I think the social worker may have been on to something.

I am awake and writing this because my mom called me fom the hospital to see if I was coming with her to another hospital for a test she's having. When she called it was 6:45am on Sunday and the test is tomorrow Monday at 2pm. Its my understanding nobody goes with her, the test is simple, painless xray. I got up anyway and chatted a bit with my mom, just to make sure she was ok.

Yesterday was a tough day as my mom chastised me for refusing contact with someone who has mistreated and taken advantage of me for many years, someone I have finally decided to cut out of my life. My mother disapproves of the fact I am refusing to facilitate her ongoing relationship with this person. In spite of the fact that my conscience is clear and I know I am not in the wrong, oh, and in spite of the fact that I am 50 years old, it still hurts to have your mom take the enemy's side.

Am I the only one going though this?

This Just Can't Be Happening...Oh Yes It Can

When I used to consider searching for my biological people, mother in particular, one of the deterrents was ending up with two mothers giving me heartburn. Twice the hassle. More family to worry about, answer to. Do I really want two mothers? What if the second one is even more difficult than the first? Well, believe it or not, I found myself in just such a situation this past week.

I'm sitting with my husband and brother-in-law at a nice outdoor  patio, about to devour a pitcher of sangria. The sun is shining, I'm away on a short holiday and this is our first day there.

Part of the reason we've visited at this time is that my biological mother is also visiting this particular city. We've been in touch about getting together and it's supposed to happen at some point. We will arrange something via text once I arrive.

Back to my patio.

I'm rocking my shades, laughing with hubby and bro-in-law, sipping sangria, and soaking up the sun when it happens. My cell phone rings.

That's not supposed to happen when I am away. Who'd call me on my cell when I'm away when I rarely get calls when I'm at home? Home care for my mom, that's who would call. My mom isn't answering her phone, her door, they made an appointment earlier in the morning for that day, would she really forget within a few hours? Hmm, not likely. I call my mom's cell, scrounge for her boyfriend's number then call him, then his cell, and finally reach him. Nope, he'd just been to my mom's and she hadn't answered and her car was there. He'd been told to bring her a loaf of bread but now he was on his way home.

Damn. This is bad. I look at my phone. I haven't charged it since the night before and the battery is lower but not too bad. I call my son to see where he is, can he zip to grandma's to see what's going on? I have a key to her place but it's at my house. Maybe if I call the office of her apartment building they'll let my son in. Better yet, maybe they'll just go in to see what's going on because it's going to take my son a good half an hour to get to my mom's. I tell my son to head to grandma's and I'll call him back. I locate and call the office of my mom's apartment.  They're reluctant to go in but understand that the situation could be serious and saving time could be critical. They will check and call me back.

I check my charge on my battery. Getting lower all the time. I just need it to hang on until the office calls me back. I still need to call home care, my mom's boyfriend, and my son back. I'm trying to stay calm but my stomach is in knots. I am 99% sure something is seriously wrong and as all possible scenarios are swirling in my head, I receive a text. Oh no, I don't have the battery charge for this.

It's my biological mother, returning my "we're here" text I'd sent when we'd gotten into town. What are my plans? Did I want to get together that day? What did I want to do? What were we doing right now? Ugh...this CAN'T be happening.

I start to text back what's going on with my mom, I may have to head back home etc. and it's impossible. Too many details for a text and I can't call as I am waiting to hear back and cannot miss that call. So, I make arrangements to meet up later with bio mom while worrying my mom mom is laying dead in her apartment. Crazy! Everything ultimately turned out alright, my mom did need help but it wasn't life threatening and the visit with bio mom went well but for a moment or two, I couldn't believe that what I dreaded was actually happening.

Are you coping with a difficult, aging parent? How do you stay sane?

It's been a while since I've written here. I've thought about it but just haven't had much to say that was suitable to share publicly.

To say I've been struggling in my relationship with my mom would be an understatement and because of this I've been doing a lot of soul searching and a bit of whining. Ok, maybe its the other way around, you'd have to ask my poor husband.

How people affect us affects those around us, I think we can all agree that's a fact.

In my marriage to my son's dad I reached that point where I needed to shut up about all the difficulties, people had listened enough. I either needed to do something about the bad relationship or quit putting it on everyone else by constantly talking about our issues. Ultimately, I did something about it and got out of the marriage.

What does a person do when the difficult person in your life is a parent? I know some people just walk away, cut the parent out of their life but I just can't. My conscience won't allow it. So, how do I cope?

How do we deal with an aging, difficult parent? I googled it and found an article written on the subject. Judging by the hundreds of ongoing comments at the piece, I am not alone, something I found comforting,

I will figure it out. Figure out how to be myself yet disassociate (as much as possible) emotionally. Figure out how to utilize my support system without alienating and driving everyone crazy.

I will not let my difficult parent turn me into the kind of person who is a complete drag to be around.

All women are not mother material and I am not the only person who's never had the perfect mom for me.

How do you cope?

The ABC's of mom and daughter....starting with Z

I really like my post from yesterday.

This morning while I had my coffee, ok well first cup, I got to thinking about it and how it's amazing that something that can really make me nuts (I'm talking knots in the upper back in between the shoulder blades and stomach pains) was able to give me some tears in the eyes, belly laughs when I thought/wrote about it in a humorous sense. I'm not kidding, I've reread it several times and got at the very least a smile upon each read.

There's a guy who has a twitter account called shitmydadsays. He has 1,322,011 followers....and I'm one of them. Justin, the guy, has a book out now with shit his dad says, called, Sh*t My Dad Says. Now, in Justin's Twitter description he says he lives with his dad and his dad is awesome so, in comparison to my mom and I, that's a huge difference in itself. I won't live with my mom or have my mom live with me. Oh I'm not opposed to some short overnight visits for a good reason and have done it, but never anything permanent. I just couldn't and remain the sane same person.

Now, before you think wow, what an ingrate! what kind of daughter would not let her mom live with her? there's something special my mom has done for me regarding this. See, my mom's mom, my grandma, used to ask my mom repeatedly to live with her and my dad. Thankfully, for me, my mom always made it quite clear that there was "no way in hell that she'd ever have her mom live with her". Ahhhh....just writing that gives me a sense of peace. It lets me so off the hook, gives me a pass in a sense. I mean, what else could be more absolving of guilt than that?

But, I digress. What I'm trying to get at here is that perhaps the key to a difficult parent is to try and see some humour, or if I'm being truly honest, take a hammer and pound some humour into our relationship and our interactions. Obviously it can be done, I did it with our pre MDay outing. I didn't come home that evening laughing and feeling all "oh, mom, you silly bird....the things you do just crack me up". In fact, I drove home kinda grouchy and shaking my head in annoyance, all ready to moan and bitch to my poor husband.

Fortunately for both him and I (especially him) the look on his face when I shuffled out of my car with those big, dumb, disposable sandals had us both laughing and thwarted me poisoning him with my rendition of shit my mom says.

Yesterday was one of those visits that went pretty well. There were moments of near derailment, like when the topic of computers came up. Mom announced how she'd had the poor IT guy from our local internet provider on the phone forever with him attempting to help her get her address book back in alphabetical order. Just her mentioning the word "computer" is enough to make everyone in the room turn and look at me in anticipation of what might happen next. It's like, uh oh, here we go again....

As mom went on to explain how the guy was so great to help her and that what a shame it was that he'd gone so fast that she'd not gotten a chance to write it all down so she'd know how to fix it herself next time I reminded her that I'd been there done that at least once before and showed her how to deal with an address book gone wrong. She wasn't having any of that, nuh uhhh, anything she's ever been told about the computer she writes down and then is able to not bother anyone, just fix it herself. Like the other day, when she lost her "tool bar on the top" she was able to figure out all on her own how to get it back.

Umm, mom? Don't you mean all on your own with me on the other end of the phone for half an hour while my dinner waited? C'mon, remember? Remember when I kept saying, well, sorry I guess I'll just have to swing by and fix it, this isn't working over the phone...no, what? what did you just click? ok, so where are you now? what do you see now? Mom, what do you see now? K, do you see the X in the top right of your screen? Is your email open? No, not is your computer turned on, I'm assuming it's turned on, I mean is your email open? Your email...the thing that says outlook....the place where your address book starts Z...