Feline Warrior

This is a medical discovery that I have made. Yes, it’s true.

I believe the headaches to be stress related, in case you’re wondering.

Please accept my apologies for being absent. This thing with my mother hastaken on a life of its own, but probably not in the way you’d have expected.

She and I are getting along fairly well. Yes, she has the ability to make me positively nutty - she’s my mother, it’s her job (apparently).But we’ve had some good talks and while I believe this is not the way I’d like to spend quality time with my mother (living in my house due to an emergency-type situation in her life), it’s okay.

So the problem, you ask? My spouse is terribly unhappy. He has selected several events and has turned them into defining events - he despises her, I think. And truly, his reaction is way over the events. There’s no balance between the two.

My mother has said that she knows he hates her, she knows he doesn’t want her here and she has no idea why. And she’s gone on to say that, even if after getting to know her (which he has not) he decided she’s not his favorite person in the world, she expected him to at least treat her with respect… which he has not.

He went to see “his family” for Thanksgiving. He drove to WV on Tuesday and came back Friday. She and I stayed behind and went to a friend’s house. It was a generous invitation from a woman M. and I know from our favorite restaurant. (As I said to Julia, “We’re going to a friend’s house for dinner. And by “friend” I mean “favorite waitress.”) We truly did have a nice time, my tomato pie was a huge hit (yes, Android, I made a tomato pie). [Note to self: email recipe to Janet.]

So there was that. But really, it’s the hostility. The intolerance. He’s said that she must leave by the first of the year. Of
course, she’s not here because she WANTS to live with her daughter and son-in-law; she’s here because she has nowhere else to go. I have no place to send her back TO. She doesn’t want to stay forever, but until she gets back on her feet - literally and figuratively.

I’ve not been this frank here before because I know Double-D sometimes reads this and worry that he’ll send M. right on over to read it (as far as I know, M. doesn’t know about this blog. Not because I’m hiding it from him but because he has never been interested in my writing).

Here’s the thing: As much as I pissed and moaned about my mother coming, I was open to the experience - plus, admittedly, a nice dash of my personal sense of drama. Even M. seemed okay with it. But the anger and hostility is bizarre, to say the least.

And here’s really and truly THE thing: I do not reply to the email his hyper-Christian aunt & uncle send me - all that crap from Focus on the Family and other bullsht that’s supposed to pass for patriotism. Why? Because it’s M’s famliy and even though I don’t agree with their views, they are M’s family, so I treat them with respect. And his mother has no idea just
how despicable I find her treatment of my husband, letting him go as a child and not bothering to get to really know him as he grew up. Or now, for that matter. I treat her with love and kindness. Why? She’s his mother and if he wants to try to have a relationship with her, I’m here to support him.

I could go on and on but I won’t. I think you’ve got the picture.

We go to Florida next week for a little R&R and I hope we can have some meaningful time together. By “meaningful time” I mean time where the television isn’t blaring. Or sharing thoughts, ideas, hopes and dreams. Things we’ve not done in a long time. And the sad thing about that (referencing “long time”) is that we were married on January 1, 2003. It’ll only be five years in almost a month.

I’m not happy with this insight I’m having, that is being shown to me. Sure, it was rough taking care of my dad (but I dealt with it for the most part and he didn’t live with us) and it stinks that my mother has to live with us. But it’s LIFE, not a bunch of busywork until we get to the finish line. I want the road from start to finish to be interesting, rich and rewarding. It has to be, or it has no meaning.

I’m going to bed all tired and worried. Now you can light candles for me. Purple, please.

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