Lost in Thought

… so why is it so hard to detach from the crazy things they do? My mum seems to think that as she has spiritual beliefs, things like psychotherapy are outside her remit. Because they don’t see the whole truth, blah blah. Err, no – they deal with the messed up behaviors one has developed since incarnating on the earth. Sometimes a helpful tool!
It’s a shame because I think she, like most people, would benefit from a good talking to by a therapist. Or, being able to talk at a therapist until they finally managed to ask her a few questions which significantly challenged her blinkered world view, to just allow her to stop and THINK. For one minute.

Argh. I’m not bothered just now. Isn’t it weird how nice it feels not having a date penciled in when she will be round again? Because we parted frostily, I said I’d drop her an email, and now I am FREE. Free! My week is my own. It’s strange how much an impact it has when a few times a week, someone strolls into your home for between two and four hours a time and just exudes self pity and negativity, with a bit of critical sneering mixed in. It’s also mental how we keep on and on seeing people because they are our family, because we have to, because it’s the done thing. I bet loads of families would drift apart without the convention to keep everything in its place. Instead for most people its just christmas when things really kick off, the spat between aunty maude and uncle gerald that threatens to get interesting. And for me, it’s twice a week on average, when I get to feel like a foolish little girl again and she gets someone to talk at.

I wish she would listen to me without always thinking she is right. Without a preconceived idea in her head. Without waiting impatiently for me to finish so she can launch into her response. I wish she would just listen to me at all. About anything. But I know she’s never been great at that, at listening. It goes with being deaf. You just check out, get away with the bare minimum. Even if I write it down, she will read it and see the words but not really hear me.
I want to say, you’re just a person too. You’re just a person, and you’re no better than anyone else. And she would say, I know that. I never said I was better. But she does say it. She says it every time she looks away when I am halfway through saying something to her, shutting off the conversation in one swift movement. She says it when her eyes flick up and down my form, and she smiles and pulls on her cigarette and raises her eyebrows in that way that says “Yeah? You want to know what I think of you? Just ask me, go on, ask me”. When people talk about my mum and I blush, because they refer to her as separate, different, shy, uninterested in other people. Aloof. When I was a kid, she used to sit apart from the other parents, smoking. Even then I knew, thought, why can’t she just be like everyone else?!

And she wonders why I can’t be her only social outlet. It’s like having tea next to a volcano. You’ll do it if you have to, but you don’t ever totally relax.