Chaos Attraction

The Morning After

2007-07-14, 11:41 a.m.

The morning after, Mom was pissed the hell off at her family. To the point where she said she was reconsidering considering Dad's side of the family as the "bad" side.

"All they ever wanted to do is talk about their trips."
"They never ask about us."
"I thought I'd get to talk to Susan more, but she never says much of anything!"
"She has no sense of humor."
"Cassie stole my film." (At least, she found some film Mom lost and apparently didn't give it back.)
"The kids are all spoiled brats!" (Uh, THEY'RE spoiled? Look at your own spoiled brat here...)
"I'm really pissed off about the luggage."
"They always had to be in charge."

Mom has always, always, always wanted to be closer to her sister. I have tried to indicate to her over the years that they just aren't interested in being really close to us, but she never really got it until this trip. Now she is all "Forget moving to be closer to them, forget having them help me clean, I'll find FRIENDS of mine to help me, because they are NOT my friends." She's pretty brokenhearted about it, but at this point in time she can't deny that they won't give her what she wants from them.

I already wasn't in a terribly great mood about family (though I wouldn't argue with any of the points Mom made), but I wasn't hating everyone's guts upon our return. But THEN I found out why Mom had been screaming her head off at me to shut up all of the last week.

Apparently at some point, Aunt Susan told her that I was too negative (I gather this was because I didn't want to snorkel, or had something to do with that anyway, she wasn't THAT specific, but the swimming thing seemed to be the big point of irritation) and I didn't look on the bright side and I am a generally horrible person.

Well, I can't deny I certainly act like that. Especially when I was getting crankier and crankier during the second week, and my aunt is one of those "Be positive!!!" people who thinks you should just suck everything up anyway. So fucking sue me if I haven't spent as much time in the ocean as they have, am not the world's strongest swimmer, AND MIGHT BE A LITTLE TIMID ABOUT DOING CERTAIN THINGS IN THE WATER AT TIMES because of those facts. I find it ironic that the woman who doesn't swim was giving me shit about not always wanting to do everything aquatic. Hey, at least I can do a modified doggy paddle and get my suit wet.

But anyway, that was why Mom had decided to tell me to shut up all the time so they wouldn't get pissed off at me for speaking up about anything. (Apparently saying anything that contradicted them, or was so much as "They don't film Lost on Kauai, they do it on Oahu" was considered to be troublesome.) So I ended up screaming my head off at her when really, she was just trying to spare me from Aunt Susan, or vice versa.

I can't help but think that I wish she had handled things differently on this score. Either (a) tell me privately while on the trip, "Aunt Susie thinks you're negative and horrible, could you please SHUT THE FUCK UP AROUND HER?", or (b) NEVER tell me that she thinks I'm horrible.

If she'd told me on the trip, I would have felt so shitty and humiliated that she wouldn't have had to tell me to shut up around them- I would have done it on my own, and everybody gets what they want from me. If she'd never told me, I wouldn't have had this in my brain to feel bad about when it was too late to do anything about it.

At least Mom apologized to me for the screaming. That doesn't happen too often.

At this point, I'd rather just not see them for awhile. (And this was the nice side of the family! It pains me that I managed to piss them the hell off. If I don't have them as the nice side, who's left?) Hell, I'm trying to convince Mom to go somewhere else out of town for the fucking holidays. Not that this will work (I don't think the timeshare thing kicks in until 2008), but I am just not in the mood to want to be around them, and they sure as fuck don't want to be around me either. (Though as of 7/30 when I am typing this, they did invite us to Guide Dog Day as promised at the beginning of the trip. I am refusing to go.)

That night, we had theater tickets to see West Side Story at Woodminster, which we'd completely forgotten about ordering. (We didn't even know what show was going on, we just hauled ass up there.) I have to say that when one is already in a bad mood with regards to human beings, watching WSS is...not a good idea.


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