My Mom Pisses Me Off

My mom seriously pisses me off.  See, this last series of posts began with my decision to purchase a condo.  I had asked her if she would help me purchase a place and she flat out said ‘no’.  It wasn’t a matter of her not being able, nor was it a matter of not wanting to.  It’s a matter of her holding onto her money so tightly that she just doesn’t do anything with it at all. 

She sold our childhood home a while back and has since moved in with my sister.  We tried to explain to her that since she was practically living with my sister before the sale of the house, she should have just kept that house and rented it out.  It was in a very good location and would not have had any trouble finding occupants.  Then it would more than supplement any expenses she had, which are none besides what she does for fun.  My sister pays for her car, let’s her live in her house for free, and covers insurance and everything else for her.  She even gave her a spare room.  My mom is free to come and go as she pleases.  The only thing that is ‘understood’ is that my mom provide day care now and then, although now that the kids are older and have afterschool activities, my mom really doesn’t do much in exchange for all the privileges my sister has given her.

The fact that my mom lives with sister pisses me off too.  My mom is always complaining about my sister and nags her about the way she takes care of her kids and makes rude comments about her husband all the time.  She has never expressed any appreciation for all the things my sister sacrifices in order to take care of her.  And the thing is, my mom is perfectly able bodied and can take care of herself.  She just treats my sister and my sister’s husband like crap.

So anyway, when my mom started living with my sister, we tried to get her to rent out her house rather than just have it sit empty.  She refused to listen to us and then the next thing we knew she sold it.  Never during that process did she tell any of us what she had done.  I never got a chance to go home and give it one last good-bye.   It was really hard for me to accept that fact.  It still hurts now knowing that I didn’t get a chance to pack up what remained in my room there.  She put all of my stuff somewhere in storage which, to this day, I have no idea where my stuff is at.  The times I went home since then to sift through my stuff she’s been “conveniently busy” when I ask her to show me where the stuff is so that I can start going through the last of my things there.  I wonder if she threw away my old yearbooks or if she threw away the box of photos from my high school years.  Man, I hate her right now. 

Anyway, so back to this condo purchase.  When I told her about it I asked if she’d help me out.  There’s a law where you can ‘gift’ someone 10K and there wouldn’t be a tax penalty.  She refused, and started yelling at me and asking me how I could even think to ask her for that money.  She is, afterall, supposedly this poor, lonely widow who only has the proceeds from her house to live on and to last her through until her death.  I knew she would say ‘no’, but somewhere I always hope that she’s got some sort of goodness somewhere, or that old age would mellow her a bit and that she’d do something because she can and because I am her daughter.  I guess that’s where I always end up hating her again and again.  I hold out for hope that her heart and attitude would change, but it hasn’t.  It’s really not about the money, but when I think about it, she made a lot in that sale, and 10K is nothing at all for her.  When she complained about how that was all the money she had to live on, I reminded her that my sister was paying for every other expense for her, the roof over her head, the car she uses, the food they eat, etc.  I asked her why she never offerred to at least help pay off the car that my sister pays for her to use.  Then she got mad at me for saying those things.  My mom has all this money, lives for free with my sister, and still refuses to part with any of her money.  How selfish is that?  Then my mom had the nerve to turn it back on me and yelled at me for not saving enough for the downpayment and for me to stop taking all the trips that I have.  I was livid when she said this.  I’ve seen the way she lives and there is no way in heck I want to live a sheltered life like hers.  I guess it never occurred to her that at the age of 32 her daughter has already managed to save and invest probably the equivalent of what she’s got now.  Yes, I may not have the liquid cash for the downpayment, but that’s only because I was so focused on my retirement investments.  I shouldn’t have said anything and just waited a more few months to purchase.  I hate her so much right now.  And my trips?  They have been the things that I live for and the things that keep me grounded.  I thought it was family and your parents who are supposed to keep you grounded.  Yea, right.  She certainly doesn’t do that for me at all.

It’s not really about the money, anyway.  It’s the fact that I’ve never asked for much from her -ever.  The few times in my life that I have asked for something, she’s never given me it, nor has she ever offered anything when she clearly saw what my need was.  She always turns it around and makes me feel bad for going to her for something.  For pete’s sake, she’s my mother!  What kind of sorry a** mother doesn’t ever help her kid out? 

Ok, so I knew asking her to help was going to end up in a ‘no’, and that was fine.

But then this past week my aunt was driving up to SF to visit my cousins (two of her sons moved up here).  My mom tried to get a ride with her, claiming she wanted to come visit me and to look at places with me.  It turns out my aunt brought a smaller car and they didn’t have room for my mom.  So my mom calls me to tell me how pissed she is that her sister didn’t find room for her.  Ok, whatever, right?  So I tell my mom to get a cheap tix on Southwest and fly out here so that even ‘tho she doesn’t drive up with my aunt, she can at least be here at the same time and we can all still hang out.  My mom said, I don’t want to spend the money (oh, gee, really?) and that it’s such a pain to fly solo (uh-huh).  So that was that and she was all, “Your aunt is so selfish.  Sorry, maybe next time.”  Then I talk to my sister the other day and I was bitching about my mom.  I remember clearly saying something like, “Mom is such a pain.  She’ll buy a $200 coach purse, but she won’t buy a $200 ticket to come visit me.” 

Oh, the coach purse is another story.  My mom bought me this TINY purse from coach that costs about $250.  I am not a fashion diva, nor do I care for labels.  I’ve just never been like that.  I’m perfectly happy with my Wal-Mart clothes and shoes I’ve worn since high school.  It’s funny how opposite us kids turned out compared to my mom.  She’s always cared about image and designer labels, and the rest of us were always happy with whatever was functional and practical.  Anyway, even the purse was a huge argument.  I told her that buying a $250 purse was stupid if she was so concerned with money.  She should go on a trip or buy food instead.  Do things that really matter.  A purse will just break or go out of style.  She got pissed at me and yelled at me for telling her what to do with her own money.  It was her money and she’d do as she pleases with it.  So I relented and took the purse from her.  In that weird way I know it makes my mom feel good to see me using that purse, and so I use it.  But the whole time I’m using it I am just thinking, what a waste of money.  How pretentious is that?  And I’m happier with a $5 knock off somewhere.

The same goes for jewelry.  My mom loves jewelry and has expensive tastes.  When I was growing up she’d always buy me things.  I never wore most of what she bought and so finally one time I just flat out refused to take something she had purchased for me.  It was a big fight, but i simply told her that it was a waste of money for her to buy it and that if I took it it would just sit in a safe somewhere.  I said if she was going to get me something then just me a gift cert somewhere or give me cash.  I told her that I don’t wear those things and that I wouldn’t get any use out of it, so buying it was a waste of money.  That is a very rational argument, yes?  Boy, I could see how hurt and upset my mom was.  Buying me pretty shiney things is simply stupid. 

Argh. 

Ok, so back to the plane ticket thing.  My last comment to my sister was, “Mom is such a pain.  She’ll buy a $200 coach purse, but she won’t buy a $200 ticket to come visit me.” 

Today I called up my sister to tell her I had sent my itinerary for my trip over July 4 to visit my family in AZ and to travel with my sis’ family to San Diego during that time.  I was going over some things about what I was planning to do while I was in AZ.  My sis then tells me that my mom is planning on going to Las Vegas that weekend for some sort of outing with friends.  WTF?  She has no problem paying for a trip to Vegas with friends, but she has a problen paying for a trip to come visit me and my brother in SF??  This pissed me off, but more bitterly IT HURTS LIKE HELL when I think about how my mom makes me feel.  I have never, ever, ever in my entire life ever felt like we came first.  I know for a fact that if we were not a Chinese family, that most people would have just disowned and disassociated themselves with such a parent by now.  I hate her and I hate everything about her.  I hate how she brought me up and I hate how neurotic I feel when it comes to the way I cope and react and interact with the world around me. 

I was talking to someone the other day whom I had just met and they made a comment about how normal, happy, and intelligent I appeared to be, and then he teasingly said, “there’s gotta be something wrong with you.”  And there, in the back of my mind, I thought that if anyone knew the real me, any admiration or love would go away along with that realization. I hate my mom, I hate how she’s raised me with all of my messed up complexes, and I hate how I can’t seem to make peace with myself right now.  It was also during this moment that I realized that I still have a long way to go before I’d be healthy enough for a healthy relationship, and this was the same moment when I decided I had to let my ex go. 

And then, as if God was listening, I came home that evening and my ex called after we had not spoken for two days.  In some ways I think the Lord was saying, “Ok, you know what you have to do.  Are you willing to trust me and do it, or do you want to keep doing it your way?”  And so I took a few deep breaths and let the words come from my heart.  It was a friendly, loving ending to a good relationship.  Good endings make good beginnings.  I know the Lord was pleased with the loving honesty in that conversation.  Now I am taking a few more deep breaths and I am waiting for the Lord to show me the way through the next item on my list of “emotional junk” that I need to sift through.