A Rant Too Far

Before I start off with an explanation for my absence...there is none. I stopped blogging for a while, got pregnant and had a kid, then restarted blogging sporadically over at Busy Black Woman. I had been attempting to keep a journal...but that was in the handbag that got stolen last month when my car alarm malfunctioned. I also have the journal that I am supposed to be writing for the Babe's benefit, but I think it is either buried under the mountain of shit on my bed or I have no idea...

I am here to vent about my behavior towards my mother this evening, which might be considered horrible or it might have just been I don't know, me venting for all of frustration I felt this evening (these past five or perhaps even thirty plus years).

I took my mother to church service this evening along with the Babe. I have done this before and have had varying degrees of success, so you already know where this story is headed. It was hot in the sanctuary, we arrived late because there was no parking, and the Babe was restless. In hindsight I probably did a dozen things wrong, but without exhausting you with too many details, it was a disaster.

My mother attempted to 'discipline' the Babe, which I resisted and the more I resisted, the worse the entire scenario got. Each time she leaned over to hush the kid, the squirmier and more restless the Babe became, which only agitated my mother even more. And that only made the temperature more unbearable. So as soon as we could, we left.

I yelled at my mother in the car. During her several attempts to discipline the baby, she said a lot, and despite the fact that there was a church service going on and that I was holding my BABY, she was totally oblivious and cruel and inappropriate and so I let her know how I felt in the car. And I can admit that I have yelled at her other times and have threatened to leave her to the whims of the other family that barely take notice of her condition, and honestly one day I might just make good and walk away and never look back.

Because I hate her.

I hate that I hate her because I want to love her. I want to overlook her cruelty, her meanness that seems to only be directed at me, her inappropriateness, her self-centered obliviousness and I want to remember who she was before all of this happened. But on days like today I cannot remember who she was before the dementia changed her. People always talk about how loved ones cannot remember them...in my case, I am unsure who suffers more from memory loss.

If I am being honest, then there are times when she was a bitch and then at other times she was not. She was not physically abusive nor did we suffer from any neglect, but she was aloof. She was not the Mommy to kiss scraped knees--she was the Mom who fussed about the hole in the knee of the pants caused by the fall. She was the Mother who sent me $200 every month when I was away at college, except that time I spent all the money on a birthday party (she was teaching me a lesson about sticking to a budget that I have YET to take to heart). She did not buy me designer clothes, but when we wore the same size, she let me wear her designer clothes. She gave us money for Christmas once we got too old for her to care about shopping anymore.

She was not a bad mother at all. And I love her.

But when she threatens to kill my child because she is whimpering because it is hot and she is restless and tired...yeah, I lost it. Not because I believe she actually means my child any harm, because I believe that she is not looking at the baby and comprehending that she is a baby who cannot use her words to express any emotions. In the very next breath Mom flirted with the Babe and wanted to console her so I know that half the shit she says is meaningless.

I had a lot more to say earlier during the internal monologue on the drive home, but I'm really tired now. I feel bad about my disrespectful conduct, and I feel like a bully. But she pushes my buttons (on purpose) and my primary job as a mother is to defend my child. And my nieces. And other helpless people who are being bullied, even if the bully is a mean woman with dementia...