More mom mayhem, or, Jeffrey is a cry-baby

I had (and am having) a good cry today, for a number of reasons, I guess…
First and foremost is the fact that Shiranne’s gone. I’m not good at showing much emotion and I was so happy with her that I didn’t see much reason to be so sad about her leaving, but now it’s the next week and I’m missing her a whole lot more simply because, well, we made a good effort to see each other despite our distance over the summer and well that’s not going to happen.
But I think what’s really been making me think about that a whole lot besides just getting on with life like I usually do is that my mom’s being especially overbearing because my dad, stepmom and sister are on vacation. We agreed that we’d plan to do some stuff over this week and I’d stay over once or twice but I have even more responsibility at this house since I’m taking care of Java and picking up housekeepers and the like. But just because my dad and stepmom aren’t around, my mom feels like she can invade my life because she’s otherwise prevented from doing so because my other set of parents is around.
That’s simply WRONG. My mom’s been calling me every day trying to plan one event or the other. Yesterday she asked “when am I going to see you” and since I was going to James’s party yesterday, I said “how about Wednesday? Or Thursday? Either day is completely fine for me,” and she said “uh no actually both days I’m really busy, how about today.” So I said “sorry, today I’m going to James’s birthday party.” And then she went off on how I never invite her to do anything and never call her up and she asked why SHE wasn’t invited to James’s party.
For the last two days I’ve ended up yelling at her over the phone, which is something I never do. I think it’s because of the first point – I’m just low-spirited overall because of Shiranne. But I told her that she has to make up her mind and decide whether she wants to see me or not, and that she has to stop giving me shit about her relationship with other people. It’s a non-stop guilt trip about why Lily doesn’t talk to her more, or why my dad and stepmom don’t invite my mom to do things (WHAT THE HELL?) or how all of my mom’s friends have left her and how she’s lonely, etc. etc.
I am the only one in her immediate family who makes an effort, and it’s one fucking hell of an effort, to do things regularly with my mom, and to treat her nicely, calmly, and with respect, despite her faults. I should be telling her to go see a therapist on a regular basis, but I try my own form of therapy, which is simply treating her nicely and going and spending my time to do things with her, but it’s not enough.
Yesterday after guilt-tripping me for half an hour she told me “I want you to be happy!” and then continued to yell about all this stuff, while it was QUITE apparent from the tone of my voice that I wasn’t feeling well, that I had other things to do, and that whatever she was trying to get at was being lost because she was simply being so inappropriate.
The third thing that caused me to cry today was the expectation that my mom wouldn’t let me go see my cousins on my dad’s side when I go to NYC over Labor Day. My cousin, Carol, invited me to a graduation party since she, her brother Ben, and their half-sister Emily all graduated this year. They even scheduled the date because they knew I was going to NYC. But my mom says she doesn’t want me going to my uncle Sandy’s house, because he’s got “marijuana bongs” there (not true). But I said today that I’d be able to take public transit from Queens to Croton-on-Hudson, and that it was on a day when my mom was busy doing other things in NYC anyway. If she doesn’t let me do this, I’m going to be extremely angry with her. I’ll probably cancel my weekend plans with her to go to this stupid Jewish thing on Friday and go hiking with her the next morning.
The fourth thing that always causes me sadness is thinking about the future. My mom is like this because she’s got mental problems and she doesn’t have enough money or willpower to try to correct them. I try my hardest while trying to keep my life intact, but I’m afraid that it’s going to be like this for the rest of my life.
The big realization I made today was that while I want to live in the Bay Area when I settle down and get my own place and a job, that might not be possible because I don’t want the fact that I’m close to my mom control my life. I don’t want to see her on a daily, weekly, or even monthly basis when I settle down. Maybe a few times a year like any regular person, but RIGHT NOW and IN THE FUTURE I am my own person with my own plans.
I try to tell all of these things to my mom but I know when to try to avoid conflict due to schedule problems. I don’t want to show her this entry because I don’t want to spend a large amount of time speaking with her right now, and I don’t want to cancel the plans we already have. And I definitely don’t want to jeopardize my trip to NYC, where I expect to see a lot of people on BOTH sides of my family, in addition to friends that I have in NYC. So for now I’ll just let all of you read all of this. This has been a giant vent. I’m feeling a bit better.
Now to build an external hard drive so I can back up all the stuff I’ve saved from the hard drive crash…