Empty Airport

Ok.. so here I sit in the airport at 4:45 pm. My plane doesn't start boarding for another 2 hours or so, so I paid the $10 to surf the internet. See, dear readers, how devoted I am to your entertainment? As if this blog is entertaining.

Anyway. If you don't feel like reading another rant about my dysfunctional family members, don't read anymore of this post. Trust me.

Last night I played Rummy with my grandfather, something I haven't done in years, since I was a kid. I have never beaten him at it until last night. He kept telling me how he enjoyed playing. Good. I enjoyed it too. :)

However..

I spent the morning at the nursing home with Mom. She wanted to talk. You have to understand what that means in my mother's world. In a normal person's vocabulary, Talking is conversation. It's communication. In my mother's world, it's sheer manipulation. It's bringing up every single thing she can think of that might have hurt my feelings or made me angry or might irritate me to talk about. It's crying and wringing her hands and seeing how far she has to go before I start getting upset.

Never, in a talk with my mother, does anything get accomplished or communicated. It's always about torturing the person she's talking to, or else torturing herself. It's sick and sad, but there it is.

The point is that I am tired of hearing how my dad did her wrong 25 years ago and how it's somehow bad that he has always liked pretty women (who doesn't??) and how everyone in her life has abandoned her. I can't stand one more insinuation that I don't love her, that nobody loves her. She doesn't understand that people do love her-- but she seems to purposely drive away everyone who tries. I'm sick of talking about stupid friends I had in high school, and idiotic boys I dated who acted like jerks. I am sick of my ex-husband, sick of all my sister's ex-husbands, and sick of her asking me when I'm getting married again.

Most of all, I am very weary of the constant guilt trips. I think I have used up the entire quota of guilt for not only my entire life, but everyone I know as well. That will be good news to some of you reading this. ;)

I wonder why she has never grown tired of rehashing the past. If she must live in the past, she could at least pick the good times to dwell on.. but then if you remind her of some of the better times we had, she starts crying because they're over.

My mother is a strange, strange woman. I love her, but I don't understand her.

So.. I'm sitting here in the airport waiting for the time to pass. M is trimming Trigger's feet today. I hope that goes well. Can't wait to get home and sleep in my own bed, get in some quality snuggle time, even go back to work on Monday. In 2 weeks, if I can somehow find the money, I'm back to Arkansas for Mom's surgery...