my mom, who i love so much, who i feel i got my best traits from, has been visiting since thursday. she was to leave tomorrow.
she left today. it's 1:30 in the afternoon.
the fight started when i opened up a newspaper and said, "this is what your next car should be: the saturn SUV hybrid. then you'd have all the room you want and not be driving a gas-guzzler like this (plymouth voyager mini-van, the thing is gigantic.) she says, "no. i'm waiting for an ethanol." well, i read a lot and i haven't come across much on ethanol so i tell her, i think, mom, maybe those cars are more in the development stages and you could get a saturn, which you trust,for a reasonable price, that's a hybrid and start saving money and the environment now."
that is how the fight started. we were pulling out of the REI parking lot. she wanted to get guy a christmas present, i showed her what he would want, and we found a good thing for her to give him, and she was going to buy it outright. instead i encouraged her to look it up on the internet to find the best price because she's always talking about how pinched their finances are (because she and my stepdad have invested all their money in strip malls in a tiny town outside of amarillo, texas - needless to say i don't get this). she seemed upset. i explained how guy looked for a tent he wanted at REI and then found it online for $75 less. i said, why not do the same thing? her reaction seemed like i was pissing on her parade. nevertheless, we went out to the car and were headed to the new mall downtown, just so she could see how much san francisco is changing. this is a town she and i have shopped in since i was 8 years old and started to give a fuck about fashion. we were excited, but after the discussion about hybrids and ethanol, and as we're driving away, things got hairy. and hairier.
we got into the same old fights all of a sudden about my step-dad and my half-sisters and her and their crazy freaking way of living and my grandparents who died, who were the only voice of reason ever in my life and it just got BAD.
we pulled over, tried to discuss it some more, and she announced, i'm going home now (to carson city, nevada). i said you know, we could just say let's think about what we've talked about and continue on and have a nice day. NO. she says she is too upset. she wants to go home. i start tearing up. she tells me i'm crying hysterically.
we get home to mine and guy's house and while i pour a fat vodka and smoke a cigarette, she gets her stuff together. i help her put it in the car. i'm feeling very depressed that my mom is leaving this way...but it's happening. she gets in the car and drives away.
there are many lessons to learn, but driving away from them, is dumb. i have learned this. taking a few moments to think is smart, but driving 6 hours away from the problem is why we are still having the same problems. money. half-sisters. me, an only child in a way, college, who worked for it, who got a semester paid by them for it, who didn't work for it, who didn't get a semester paid...it's family.
my family used to rule. i used to think we were special and seperate from families who didn't like each other or who fought.
then it totally changed and we became that family, the fighting family, the family who rolls their eyes and says, "Well, i'm spending the holidays with my family, better bring the valium! ha ha ha." we are now the family who can't be around each other, and while there is love, there is little tolerance for anything psychologically challenging. there is driving away. there is closing doors.
there is vodka drinks on the front porch at 2pm in the afternoon on a saturday.
i have no answers. i don't know how to fix this.
