Let me go on the record and declare the Summer of 2013 as the Most Fucked Up Summer Since 1999. I noted this a week or two ago in a conversation with Medusa (who weathered the Summer of 1999 with me), and she responded, “What? Were we dealing with lunatics with God complexes and cowards with anxiety disorders in 1999?” In fact, yes we were. But that is neither here nor there. The point is, I haven’t felt so at loose ends and so colossally fucked up since that summer, lo, 14 years ago. And let’s note that the fucked-up-ness of that summer pushed me into a terrible 3-year-long live-in relationship with a guy who was So Fucking Wrong For Me, just because I was in such need for stability.
So what is wrong, as this summer of 2013 draws to a close?
I’m heartbroken, my book project is stalled, I am not speaking to one of my “best” friends, A., the bookstore lost (or just failed to place?) the book orders that I went out of my way to give them IN APRIL for my fall courses and didn’t alert me to the problem until this week, I got my first speeding ticket in my life (after 22 years of driving, and speeding, so probably I was due, and I most certainly deserved it), and I’m about to turn 39 (which isn’t a surprise or anything, and isn’t exactly bad in itself, but with all of the other things that are WRONG, let’s just say that I’m feeling like perhaps I am DOOMED to have a fucked up life, and I will never get my shit together, and I will never find a way to be satisfied and happy). Oh, and my person who cuts my hair overwaxed my eyebrows so they are way too thin and seem like they would be appropriate to 1999, and I have a balance on my credit card for the first time since I dug myself out of credit card debt (and yet, I keep spending), and I fell off the wagon on diet and exercise and so have gained back the weight I lost on WW a couple of years ago, all of my friends who were supposed to visit me this summer bailed, and I am sure there is more, but frankly, I can’t be bothered to list anymore because it’s all just too depressing.
In an attempt to present a silver lining to you, I will note that my hair is looking great these days, for it has finally grown into a passable bob after a year and a half of growing it out from the VERY short pixie cut, and my living room is no longer the dirty-looking green-cream-color-that-makes-everybody-look-bad that it has been since I moved in, and I finally got a bench for a blank space of wall, and in a month I will have a new sectional-sofa to replace my actually dirty and worn out sofa that I’ve had for 9 years, and I did the Great Book Migration so my downstairs is no longer the Sad Place of too many disorganized books. And yes, I have good friends, and I will be an auntie to HS BFF’s coming baby. But you know what? Other than the friends and tiny human news, all of this is kind of superficial shit, whereas much of the bad shit is actually bad.
At any rate, to get to the title of this post. My mom came this weekend, and she helped me paint the living room. I am entirely grateful for her help with that, and I’m grateful for the fact that she helped me mop my floors, and I’m grateful just for the time I got to spend with her. And for the fact that she bought me the bench. But.
From just about the moment that she showed up, it was an exercise in her pointing out my flaws. Let me give you an overview: my clothes aren’t flattering or age-appropriate, I have a zit on my face, my eyebrows look weird, I’m a terrible housekeeper (although my house is just about in the same state as hers is), why isn’t my book written?, I love my cats too much and I will never have a relationship because of my cat-love, I shouldn’t be in contact with The Dude but I also shouldn’t be fraternizing with online dating people who are “weird”, the mop that she made me buy three years ago, because the mop I had was BAD, is BAD, I am a terrible hostess (even though she refused to allow me to plan fun things for us to do), I make her do stuff for me (which I don’t) and then I want her to get out “as soon as the work is done” (which isn’t true), when I tell her that I want us to just spend time together, she says what she wants to do is to reorganize my whole house in the way that she wants to do it, and when I express an opinion I am ungrateful, even though I thanked her profusely for everything she did, and even thought it is MY FUCKING HOUSE and my opinion is what matters!
The bad news is that after three days of this, I finally had a major meltdown (precipitated by the MOP) in which I cried and yelled at her, and she decided to leave early. The good news, I suppose, is that at least she is no longer badgering me and making me feel like shit. Though, of course, I totally feel like shit because she left. Which she knew I would. Because I told her it made me feel bad. Additionally, she was all, “I’m just not going to come visit you anymore.” Which, what the fuck? I want her to come visit. I don’t want her to show up and treat me like shit! The point isn’t that she can’t visit! The point is that I am an adult and that I expect her to treat me with just a tiny teensy bit of respect! And to stop fucking pointing out every fucking thing that is wrong with me and my life!
We have been having a version of this fight since I was about 14 years old. I’m tired of it. And, frankly, the only reprieve I’ve had from this fight was when I lived with that terrible boyfriend from 2000-2003 (one of the few bright spots in that relationship, honestly). It’s like because I am not partnered or a mother I don’t get to be a grown-up for her. And it’s fucking bullshit.
Look, I know I’m not perfect, and I know that my house could be cleaner and I could weigh less and my yard could be more pristine and my book could be written and my life could be less fucked up. But, that’s just it: I know all of that. I really don’t need her to point it out. I need her to fucking accept me as I am and stop trying to fucking fix me. Because the fact of the matter is, I am pretty sure I’m never going to measure up to her ideal of what I should be. And part of the reason I’m sure of that is because I never have.
And so, I am about 16 years old right now, emotionally. And I hate my mom (even though of course I love her), and my life fucking sucks (not only because I think so but because she has asserted that it does).
Note to all y’all bloggy readers who are mothers of daughters: when they get to be 38-going on 39-years old? And when they tell you to stop riding them like they are fucking teenagers? Listen before they burst into tears. Listen before it becomes a big THING. Because you know what? They will be grown ass women then, and this sort of drama sucks balls. And your daughters really want to spend time with you. They just hate it when you act like motherfucking assholes.
In other silver lining on the big dark angry cloud news, the Man-Kitty snores beside me looking very kittenish. Which, of course, means I love him so much that I will die alone.
Jesus.
Reassigned Time 2.0 
*virtual hug*
Your mother’s sense of timing seems similar to my mother’s. Conversations with my mother have a distinctive pattern. Here’s an example. ELP: “I have to set time aside so I can finish my book.” ELP’s mother: “Why isn’t the book written yet?”
(I should add that I am a 50-year-old man.)
I’m so sorry, sister. I think you’re rad and I will in fact keep all of this in mind as Kizzy approaches teenage years.
I’ll bet you anything that my mother is eleventeen bajillion times more horrible than yours. And remind me the difference between a pixie and a bob?
Sorry to hear about all the drama! From reading your blog you sound perfect just the way you are. Hang in.
Another virtual hug, Dr C.
Oh, bloggy peeps. I know I am fucked up and not perfect. Seriously: NOT PERFECT AT ALL!!! Just stop making me feel like shit is my plea to my mom – that’s all I want! CPP = Pixie is like an inch of hair (think Annette Benning or Michelle Williams), a bob is like Carey Mulligan in Gatsby – maybe 4 inches of hair beyond the pixie 🙂
For what it’s worth, I’ve been listening to 70s music that makes me happy. Donna Summer, The Commodores, and then into the 80s – Prince. Worst case scenario, I am dancing.
/comfort
I hope your Mom comes around. I have a few years on you, but at some point, my relationship with my Mother got a whole lot easier. I can’t even point to when it happened, but retrospectively, it has happened. I hope yours turns around, too.
No one is perfect, and no one is the bestest ever, and we all need a little leeway to live our lives the way we want to.
Tell Man-kitty he’s on therapy duty right now.
Re cats: loving your cats is totally the way to find a guy who is as fond of cats as you are. Or even more so. They are furry screening mechanisms for guys who would become Crazy Cat Dudes except that they met you and passed muster with the Man-Kitty and Mr. Stripey. Of course, then you have to become the Crazy Cat Couple, but I’m here to tell you that that is a perfectly decent fate.
I am sorry for all the drama, and i hope you soon reconnect with the awesomeness of Crazy. I had drama in my life this past year (not with my mother, thankfully) that made me feel as if I were back in Junior high, and it was miserable. Because in addition to your Mom acting like you’re 14, part of you is responding that way – or at least that’s what I found. The other part is doing this deep analysis which proves you are NOT 14, but it’s terribly complicated.
As for the rest: I will never be a great housekeeper, but I have written two books. They take their own time – the ideas have to come together, and you can’t force it. I have one colleague who has many gifts, but I think his books are just a trifle undercooked.
In other news, I love my bob…
Perhaps your mother has narcissistic personality disorder. mine does.
Hugs. And hang on to the kitties, as they are an example of love from which we can all learn. I’m very much in the ‘love me, love my cats/dogs/birds’ camp. Dealing with Mom sounds horrific; I think professorsusan has a big point – we get trapped into these cycles of relationship understandings. And it takes both people to break out of those cycles. I think. But then, WTF do I know?
At one point, in college, my bestest dude friend took me aside and said (with intensity and emphasis): “IT’S VERY IMPORTANT TO BE HAPPY WITH YOUR HAIR.” I think of this often.
So between awesome cats and awesome hair, and a house you’re even happier living in than before, you’ve got a lot going for you.
But still: I feel you. Sending you virtual hugs and virtual drinks–and if you make it up to your ancestral home in the next 10 months, there’ll be non-virtual ones, too.
What DEH said about the cats. My guy is such a cat person and the one is really his baby girl (even though she was mine first). They are socute together too.
I can sympathize about the mom thing. This summer I’ve been in tears nearly every time I see my parents. Many hugs.
They are furry screening mechanisms for guys who would become Crazy Cat Dudes except that they met you and passed muster with the Man-Kitty and Mr. Stripey.
I hated cats until I met PhysioWife and her cat of the time (now, sadly, deceased).
I’m so sorry that you’re dealing with all this! I was just talking last night with a friend who’s going through similar stuff with her mom. Her parents (and her sibs) never went to college and all still live where they grew up (and the two other sibs are pretty messed up–my friend is a successful prof with a house and an amazing group of friends). But her mom doesn’t really “get” any of her accomplishments, and seems to criticize her for everything and always stands up for her messed-up siblings. I didn’t quite know what to say. I’ve got issues with my own folks (who doesn’t?!) but it struck me that some of what was making this all so much harder for her is her parents’ inability to understand (or even respect) her life, which is *so* different from theirs. I know that there’s more going on with your mom (and she does sounds like she’s been supportive of you at times, though in odd ways). But I’m sure it must be hard to deal with (esp. on top of all the other stuff…) I hope you’re feeling better soon! Glad you’ve got the kitties…
i’m always a frail being in need of care for my mom. i think moms sometimes make us all teenagers. anyway, you are awesome. hello, you’re Dr. Crazy!!! that in itself is awesome.
As a mom to a teen who’s about to head off to university, I think about behaviours such as this and try NOT to be a hyper-critical of her. Sure, she’s got failings – so do I! My house is never clean enough, I know – I don’t need someone else to point that out and I’m sure that you don’t either.
Here’s hoping the last few weeks of the summer go easier on you and you have something good, besides your hair, to buoy you up as you start up a new term!
Oh, Dr. Crazy, I’m so sorry. Who among us couldn’t be better housekeepers or lose weight or purchase more reliable mops or whatever, but last time I checked, THAT’S NOT OUR JOBS!!! (I say “our jobs” because it looks like most of the commenters who’ve spoken up in this thread are academics.)
I think this might be at the heart of your conflict: “It’s like because I am not partnered or a mother I don’t get to be a grown-up for her. And it’s fucking bullshit.”
People who are married and people with children get all kinds of credit and deference and cookies for doing these things. But you know what? I probably learned more from my unmarried, child-free/gay/weird/whatever adult family members as a child than I learned from the adults who married and had their own children. I also probably loved them more, too.
[…] Dr. Crazy: […]
For what it’s worth, perfect is totally overrated.
*virtual tea*
What my wife (^CrowGirl) says … cat-love is very important, as our two cats — and I’m sure yours as well! — would attest.
I’m sorry your mother can’t seem to focus on the imperfect beauty of your life, and let go of some of her anxiety on your behalf.
Historiann writes:
“But you know what? I probably learned more from my unmarried, child-free/gay/weird/whatever adult family members as a child than I learned from the adults who married and had their own children.”
As someone who was single for the first 27 years of my life, and until I met my future wife in graduate school anticipated being the eccentric maiden aunt of the family (fairly contentedly!), I just want to second this comment. As a girlchild looking toward adulthood, it was my aunt working toward her PhD (who married at age fifty, and never had children), and several other adult single, non-parenting women who were key role models for life. And as a college student it was my single and/or non-parenting professors who were creative, thoughtful, caring, engaged people who gave me the confidence to put one foot in front of the other and be an adult in my twenties, and now my thirties. I don’t feel (and didn’t even before getting married) that I was somehow an Adult-In-Waiting because I didn’t have all my shit together 24/7.
“Good enough” should definitely be our rubric.
My own mother used to quote the Bible verse: “But to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God” as her benchmark for success. Like, that’s ALL you’re asked to do: be mindful, be kind, and live life with a certain amount of humility. Forgive yourself for most everything else.
Your mom sounds like my grandma. She always loved pointing out flaws about myself that for some reason she thought I didn’t know about myself….I’d gained weight, my hair was flat, my thighs were to wide…in the end, I just told myself this was her way of “helping,” and in her seventies, she was unlikely to change!
Dear Crazy:
Riding to the rescue from Historiann’s ranch: Rita Mae Brown –> Gloria Steinem July 28 1976 (this would be approximately the say my own mother creeped my journal and found out I was a lesbian):
“My mother, two months ago, read Rubyfruit Jungle. AS we say down south, she cleared off a space and showed her ass. Threw an incredible hissy or, in the words of the North, she was bullshit mad. Tore the offending material up and threw it in the garbage. Then she had the audacity to call me long distance and give me a piece of her mind, a rancid piece to be sure….told her if she thought she was the mother in that book to review her past. More piffle from Mother Brown. So I said, ‘Look Ma, if hte shoe fits, take it off.’ End of that conversation.”
Dear Dr Crazy,
I totally enjoy that you are able to swear alot about your situation. I grew up never swearing. As nice girls, we were SO not supposed to swear (although my mother forbad even my father from saying anything worse than Damnation!) Now I say fuck a lot when things are crap and I find it infinitely rewarding and therapeutic. So, I hope you also are getting a lot from writing this post. Obviously, I am not a ‘nice’ girl any more, and I am very happy. And let me tell you Dr Crazy, I totally appreciate how talented and fabulous you are, as yourself, fucked up or no.
OMG, Crazy, sending virtual hugs to you! My mom was not this kind of mom, but my dad, on the other hand, is *totally* this kind of dad. Would you believe that the last time I saw him, he said to my sister and me (forgetting that I am married — he has mild dementia now), “If only you would find husbands so I could stop worrying about you girls.” For the record, I am 44 and my sister is SIXTY-FUCKING-ONE. But yes, we’re “girls” who need a man so Daddy can stop worrying. So, I hear ya, sister, I hear ya.
And Historiann has it completely right. If getting hitched and having kids made people into automatic grown-ups, we wouldn’t have to deal with such BS from our incapable-of-changing parents!
It seems to be almost universal, this, with mothers; I blame the patriarchy.
[…] On regressing in response to concentrated exposure to one’s parent. […]
I go through so much of this with my own mother that I almost felt like a teenager again just reading this.
I saw her twice this week and it suddenly hit me that never, since I’ve been an adult, have I ever spent any time with her without her mentioning my weight in some capacity. Whether in sympathy or in accusation or stealthily by mentioning other people’s weight loss efforts, it’s simply a topic that *never* fails to come up, and I’m getting to the point where I just can’t deal with it anymore. Why do mothers do this shit to their girls?