Working My Butt Off

Jennie ^ you were right!

Things have been insanely busy at work, and only getting busier. It never ends. I need vacation.

My friend is having a wedding in Asheville on September 10. I think I'll stay longer and enjoy myself for a few days while I'm there (it's only 3 hours away). But before September there is 4th of July, which is also my mother's birthday. Because we started talking again, she invited me to a "reunion" of sorts to her house in FL to spend a couple of days and see my stepbrothers, both of whom I haven't seen since they were little (26 years!). I feel uneasy about going. My sister lives 45 minutes away from my mother and they aren't talking much, so she didn't invite my sister. My sister and I weren't talking either for a few months (long story) but we just reconnected a week ago, and we're fine for the most part. My mother knew I'd be having that phone call, and now I don't want to call my mother because she's going to try to twist things. Why?

Because, sadly, I've realized that my mother hasn't really changed that much. She is up to her old narcissistic "golden child" tricks, where she forms a triangle between the three of us, pitting me against my sister and vice versa. I can do no wrong now that we're talking again - and especially since she and my sister aren't on good terms - but my sister is evil and can do no right. I know this both by the things she tells me about my sister, and by the passive-aggressive FB posts that a grown woman, much less someone's mother, shouldn't be posting.

I've dealt with this my entire life - and hated being favored over my sister. I think I went 10 years (maybe longer?) not speaking to her. During this time, my sister and her became a bit closer, although it was rocky. I'm wondering if there will ever be a time when we're all happily getting along at the same time. My sister and I can talk about this stuff because we grew up with it. My sister knows I vehemently dislike being favored and don't encourage it at all.

But my mother and I had the fact that we both weren't talking to my sister in common for the past few months, so everything was running smoothly (in my mother's eyes). My mother told me things that my sister said about me as a way to make me angry with my sister. Then I call my sister and she starts complaining about things my mother has done, but my mother gives me an opposite story. Who do I believe? Why am I in the middle? I love you both, but handle your shit with each other!

So now that my sister and I are talking, I haven't contacted my mother in the past week because I know she's expecting to negate everything I say about my sister. I know I don't have to tell her what we talked about - and I don't plan on it, but the fact that I even have to try and avoid discussing topics with my mother -especially about the fact that my sister and I are good again - is insane. "So what did Joey say? Oh right. She always acts like everything is perfect. But we know the truth. She's with that asshole again, and doing this ..and doing that...all she does is manipulate and lie, and those poor kids..." etc.  Throughout my life, I've referred to these moments as her Jekyll and Hyde moments, something I've had to learn to deal with. So I have grown strong enough to be brutally honest with my mother when she's acting like a child and now I'm very prepared to let her know that I won't tolerate the way she speaks about my sister, and that it is childish.

And the problem is: Mother's Day. So I have to call her and will most likely have to have this conversation.

This is the drama that, at 40 years old, I should not have to deal with. My mother is a classic case of having issues with "arrested development". I honestly believe that her maturity stopped when she went through her own terrible childhood. Since she was never able to process or deal with it, when she acts out, it is from that same age and is used as a coping mechanism. She's a complicated one. I thought she was getting better, but it was only because my sister and her were on bad terms that she was treating me so well. Don't get me wrong. I don't hate her or anything. I've come to accept that she is who she is and did the best with what she had. That's all any of us can do. My sister isn't quite there yet, but is working on it and learning how to let go of dwelling on how terrible her childhood was and how to just realize - my mother was a child when she had us, and was simply incapable of being a good, loving mother because she was never taught that herself.

But back to needing vacation; I don't want to spend the only vacation time I have - after spending the past year working my ass off and going to school, etc. - being smothered in dysfunctional toxic drama. I'd rather go to a retreat all by my lonesome and get my self right, and sane, and energized.