Not the Doting Daughter August 05, 2003 - 7:19 p.m.

The woman is neurotic. And by woman, I mean my mother.

She likes to play these little games.. feed people tiny lies... exaggerate the truth... act like she's completely stupid... and for what reason? Gain pity? Utilize someone else's luxuries? Take advantage of a situation, trying to make it her own? Simply to see if she can do it? And she thinks she's so clever when she plays these tricks, trying to act coy and innocent... but I've seen this act for years now. I've caught on. Does she always do it on purpose? That, I'm not so sure of. Most of the time, I'm certain it's purely intentional. But there are other times that I have my doubts.

I can't describe how she is. No one phrase could ever encompass the insanity that I deal with each day that involves her presence. No one paragraph. No book. I don't think there are enough words to comprehend what she's like. There's simply experience and time invested. Some pick up on it immediately while others seem oblivious for awhile.

Ten minutes after meeting with my brother this morning, and he was already rolling his eyes and trying to salvage his last bit of patience with her. And that was with just casual conversation. I don't think she even had her game face on at this point.

I spent the last five hours with her sitting here, making up excuses as to why she couldn't leave yet. She had to thoroughly check her email. The traffic was bad, and she wanted to avoid it. She was waiting for Chris to get home. She wanted to wait till some show was over. She heard on the news that aliens were going to land in our backyard, so she had to be here to see it.

I'm fucking tired as all hell, and she knows this, so all I want to do is go to sleep. But I can't sleep with her here, because I don't trust her. So I have to stay awake and listen to the Lifetime Achievement Award Winner of the Stupidest Questions, ramble on and on about absolutely nothing, repeating herself literally dozens of times, asking the same question over and over and over despite what answer I might give her because none of what I said was obviously good enough... Now I've got the absolute worst headache I think I've had in a long, long while.

And I try my best to be nice. To not show just how much I'm annoyed. But each new useless inquiry, each poor-me montage, each lie rips another layer of my patience away. And with that patience, goes every bit of façade covering the angry girl inside.

I want to be a doting daughter. I do. I want to be able to honestly say I look at my mom as an idol. I want to say she was the best influence on my life. I want to happily take care of her when she's old and feeble. I want to feel that need to call her everyday and see how she's doing, or simply talk. I want to enjoy shopping trips and early lunches with her. I want to be there for her when she's sad and laugh with her when she's happy. But with this woman, I feel I am incapable of all these things. Like they are long lost scrolls with no solution that scholars ponder on for ages. They can come up with thousands of conclusions, but it's never the right one. It's never accurate.

I know I should be happy that my mother is still around. I'm fully aware that there are people that don't have the chance to even contemplate hating their mother right now. And I know I would be sad if she were gone, but having to deal with her is like this whole other pain in itself.

One pain would only be replaced by the other.

Will these feelings ever go away?

If I were someone else, and I met me on the street... I think I'd punch me.

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