bold nada on the phone

[Guest guest]

I mentioned that my nada called last night. I was ready to answer, and

see where I stood, so I did.

Well, because she has become " dead " to me, I noticed that not much of

what she said on the phone bothered me.

I was at first intrigued in the conversation that my mom was

apologizing for pushing me so hard as a child. But the way she said,

sorry, made me think more of a sly cat with a canary in its mouth,

that it thought its owner could not see.

Nada thought she was being subtle, but knew she was going to find a

way to be bad to me. To keep her from advancing in my direction, I

would ask her to repeat her bad language, as long as it was not

directed at me. I watched her spar with all kinds of imaginary

enemies. I even got to hear her forgive my aunts and uncles for things

she had held against them. Mostly I just listened, and hoped for the

best.

The good things were I got to learn some important family history.

Now that I have nothing to lose, I can ask any questions that come to

mind. I took notes.

It was only after a half hour, that she stepped over the line and took

a poop on my heart. My radar went up when my mom started to tell me

that I had been a bad daughter for getting close to my aunts and

uncles when we moved to her old home state for my husband's job (we

lived there eight years, and left for our current home the year our

son was born and when my husband got a new job in the Southeast)... I

don't object to that construct, usually I just ignore... But I was on

careful watch. That is when I heard her switch to making fun of those

who had befriended me and SAVED me from her torture as a child.... She

was mid sentence, and starting in, " You had to have the Maia's and the

Shmaya's and the Bye-ahs..... "

Where she was treading was so disgusting that I interrupted her: Maia

was the friend that was tragically killed in a bike-train accident two

years ago and we visited her parents on my trip out west.

I did not tell her that she was being mean, or try to set a

boundary. I just said,

" This conversation had been OK up to this point. Now it is

degenerating. I've got to go now. " Even as she objected... " Now

listen, " I declined the opportunity to hear anything more. I had no

place in me to listen, and I honored that. I knew no apology was

coming and I had no wish to reward her gross faux pax, by giving her

another chance to get it wrong. I had already handled enough slights

assertively and with more diplomacy than she had deserved. So I hung

up without apologizing. I felt so at peace!

I suspect next time I will call her cards earlier, and point to her

putdowns of me. Ask her if she knows what she is doing. If she denies

she is doing it, I might say. " Mom, when you are able to use your good

brain cells to refrain from belittling and downing me, then I will

not have to hang up on you in order to protect myself. Until then,

good-bye. "

I am going to put that quote by the phone. Because little Vicki is on

strike and she is telling my adult , that she is sick and

tired of this horseshit that my mother calls " parenting. "

Sometimes nada makes me laugh. I think I laughed a little too easily

at her crap last night, so she tried a " gotcha " at the end with my

dear late friend. What a toadstood nada can be!