What does it take to turn a more-than-full-grown woman into a petulant 13 year old with her hands on her hips, screaming, You’re not the boss of me, to her 91 year-old mother? The answer is, not much.
Now all of us are susceptible to bouts of childish behavior from time to time. Last August I threw a very respectable temper fit in the middle of San Francisco because I couldn’t get the frigging GPS to work and I wound up at midnight in some warehouse district with back alleys and unseen drug pushers with my granddaughter in the backseat.
Even thinking about it now I want to stomp my feet and beat a steering wheel to death with a tire iron. Luckily my granddaughter just laughed at me, which was of course the perfect thing to do.
Most of the time, well okay, a portion of the time I’m fairly secure in my level of maturity and my ability to live and manage my life like an adult. I mean I do occasionally have crying fits in my closet with my blankie and my thumb in my mouth but everybody has those. Right?
So while I’m perfectly capable of being an adult most of the time, all I need in order to turn into a 13 year old girl is one parental remark coming out of my mother’s mouth and there I am with my arms crossed, my eyes rolling, and the finger snapping thing going on. You know what I’m talking about.
I mean all that’s missing is stomping my feet and slamming the door as I retreat to my bedroom to pick up the phone and call my best friend….
YOU WON’T BELIEVE WHAT MY MOTHER JUST DID!
See my mom has this obsession with things being done immediately and I don’t. I don’t even have anything remotely close to that problem. Whatever it is I’ll do it, I just don’t have a compulsion to do it right now, or in the next half hour, or maybe even today. This drives my mom crazy.
Like the other day we came home after a fairly tiring day and upon walking in the door my mom said, the garbage needs to be taken out to the curb for trash pickup. I said okay. Then I sat down to read the paper.
She starts putting her shoes on and says she’ll get the trash out. Now she’s 91 and she can’t do it by herself. I say, I’ll do it I’m just reading the paper right now.
I swear that it wasn’t more than five minutes later when Mom again says, If you’re gonna get the trash out you better hurry cause it’ll be dark soon, as if there’s a law or something against taking the trash out in the dark.
Now as anyone who’s watched Dr. Phil knows, none of this is about the damn trash.
The thing is that this scenario gets played out almost every day – sometimes several times in a day — Mom wanting something done and me not doing it fast enough. Even when I say, I’ll do it in a little bit, I’m working just now, it only deters her for maybe an hour or so.
I mean I love the woman and want her with me for the rest of her life or the rest of my life however long that might be. Her sister died last year at the age of 100 so chances are good that Mom and I are stuck together for at least a few more years and I have GOT to get this fixed – I can’t go on living this way!
So my mom and I have been going to therapy – I thought it was just for her but here I am a tag-a-long because she says she feels more comfortable when I’m there. But whatever – I’ve learned a few things sitting there listening.
The therapist says that Mom feels in a hurry all the time – she can’t just allow things to unfold. She has to get it done now or she gets really anxious. When that happens she turns to me and asks me to do whatever it is that needs doing and when I’ve got it done it she feels calm again.
I would be less than truthful if I didn’t say that my first reaction to my Mom’s default tactic of rushing or pushing me in order to take care of her anxiety is to get a little pissed. My temperature starts going up, my jacket and wool socks start coming off and I start saying things under my breath like shit, hell fire & damnation and fuck.
So for our homework this week the therapist wants Mom to try to remember to practice deep breathing when she feels anxious and to try not to rush me in an effort to alleviate her anxiety. When I feel that she is rushing me, I’m supposed to say, I’m feeling rushed.
I figure I can learn to react differently, especially if it gets her off my back. So instead of doing the chore for her and then sulking in my closet for the rest of the day and instead of saying,
For The Love of God and All That Is Holy, You’ve Got to Frigging Back Off,
I’m going to calmly say, I’m feeling rushed.
I must say that I’m a little disappointed.
Betcha can’t guess how I came to be driving naked down interstate 35 north of Denton, Texas one June night! Well, okay I wasn’t completely naked, just naked enough to get me arrested for indecent exposure if the highway patrol pulled me over which they didn’t so it was totally okay.
