New Car, New Stress
Buy a Car: Take 2. Mom and I got a 2008 Kia Rondo, and it is my new car. It's that wimpy "gold" color, one of the few colors I always hated on cars, but I love it anyway, and it is my new baby, and I shall love it and care for it and work to pay for it. Except...
Except that yesterday evening, hours after we brought the thing home and I expressed my willingness to work for it and happiness to own it, I got to meet up with friends to see Wolverine (we laughed long, my friends, oh yes we did) and then they came back to my house for hangout time. I so rarely get to see them, and we got caught up watching the Nostalgia Critic, so it was late when they left, and about 2am when I got to sleep.
I wake up at 9am with the alarm to feed the cats as if my job on weekends, and it is Memorial Day, so that counts. Found that cats were already up and fed and mom was showering. Went back to sleep for a bit. Woke up 10:50am. Thirty seconds after I get out of bed, put on my bathrobe and go to my bathroom, mom opens my door (without knocking) and expresses her unmixed displeasure about my not being awake. "Really, really unhappy."
I dress and go sit at my computer. Then she storms in, and its about a million things I haven't done in the last 12 hours. It would take ages to list them, but basically I clearly don't care about my life, and why can't she make me care, and what has she done wrong, and what is she supposed to do?
So I argue with her. I try to explain myself, because I wasn't gonna take it this morning. I woke up 2 hours later than usual and so suddenly its clear I don't care about my life? So I tried to argue. But it never, never works. Because even if I think I've gotten a point across, she twists my words until they're back on herself, and decides that she's done everything wrong, and it's all her fault, and she should hate herself. Because I am the giant center of her world, and if my life goes wrong, then everything she's done is wrong, and everything she's done has been for nothing. She fails if I fail. And the biggest, most recent, obstacle seems to be the whole coddling thing. She's tried to shelter me, and keep me from making bad decisions and help me get everything that I want for 23 fucking years. She's letting me live here at home, no rent, groceries shared, cushy cushy cushy. And I've spent the last year with no regular job, no closer to being a comic artist, no looking for work as an artist. She wants me to do what I want, but at the same time tells me I should get any job, any job at all, and hey, look, art-related jobs, you can do all that, right? But nothing happens, and a year has passed, and she yells at me constantly (but inconsistently) about not being motivated and not helping myself, and why don't I show any initiative or want to change my circumstances and join the world? Why? Because I've got it great here, mom. Aside from your enormous and unpredictable mood swings, I've got a great life here. So she had a problem dealing with the kicking-me-out-of-the-nest thing. She thinks that I'm smart enough to appreciate all the nice things she's done to cushion my finding-a-life process, and that I should be jumping at the chance to join the world now while I have her to fall back on.
I guess I'm not that smart. Oh, and all this has been said through crying and blubbering, btw.
But it all gets turned back on her, of course. She says "I just don't know what to do" about a million times, and when I try to point out her inconsistent treatment of me, or try to say what I think the problems are, she completely melts down into tears and hides in her room. Then comes out with a rebuttal five minutes later. The problem is that she turns it all on her. She's screwed up. She's responsible for me failing. She can't enjoy the nice house she has because it's keeping me from experiencing the real world. I fail, so she fails.
So now she's told me she won't ever yell at me ever again, since I've told her that makes it worse. She won't be asking me to spend any more time with her, like off at nurseries to pick out flowers and such. My time is my own, but she said it rather unclearly. I don't know if it means she'll ignore me when we're in the house together and not act like we're friends anymore, for fear of being too nice to me, or if she'll change her mind in a week and we start all over. Or if she'll find some middle ground I've never seen before and don't know how to tread.
At the moment she's fled the house. I think she's in the garage or outside. I'm afraid to talk to her, because I never, ever say the right things. It always comes out wrong, and it makes her assume things about what I think of her or how I feel that aren't true, because I can't seem to say what I mean.
I'm tired, and I'm lost, and I hate this, all of it. I want to say the right things. I want her to stop believing that I'm the only things that gives her life meaning. I want her to see a therapist. I want a million dollars to fall in my lap.
Shit.
I'm going to think of something else to say, and see if she's here so I can talk to her again.
All because I got up at 11 this morning instead of 9. I hate this.
Except that yesterday evening, hours after we brought the thing home and I expressed my willingness to work for it and happiness to own it, I got to meet up with friends to see Wolverine (we laughed long, my friends, oh yes we did) and then they came back to my house for hangout time. I so rarely get to see them, and we got caught up watching the Nostalgia Critic, so it was late when they left, and about 2am when I got to sleep.
I wake up at 9am with the alarm to feed the cats as if my job on weekends, and it is Memorial Day, so that counts. Found that cats were already up and fed and mom was showering. Went back to sleep for a bit. Woke up 10:50am. Thirty seconds after I get out of bed, put on my bathrobe and go to my bathroom, mom opens my door (without knocking) and expresses her unmixed displeasure about my not being awake. "Really, really unhappy."
I dress and go sit at my computer. Then she storms in, and its about a million things I haven't done in the last 12 hours. It would take ages to list them, but basically I clearly don't care about my life, and why can't she make me care, and what has she done wrong, and what is she supposed to do?
So I argue with her. I try to explain myself, because I wasn't gonna take it this morning. I woke up 2 hours later than usual and so suddenly its clear I don't care about my life? So I tried to argue. But it never, never works. Because even if I think I've gotten a point across, she twists my words until they're back on herself, and decides that she's done everything wrong, and it's all her fault, and she should hate herself. Because I am the giant center of her world, and if my life goes wrong, then everything she's done is wrong, and everything she's done has been for nothing. She fails if I fail. And the biggest, most recent, obstacle seems to be the whole coddling thing. She's tried to shelter me, and keep me from making bad decisions and help me get everything that I want for 23 fucking years. She's letting me live here at home, no rent, groceries shared, cushy cushy cushy. And I've spent the last year with no regular job, no closer to being a comic artist, no looking for work as an artist. She wants me to do what I want, but at the same time tells me I should get any job, any job at all, and hey, look, art-related jobs, you can do all that, right? But nothing happens, and a year has passed, and she yells at me constantly (but inconsistently) about not being motivated and not helping myself, and why don't I show any initiative or want to change my circumstances and join the world? Why? Because I've got it great here, mom. Aside from your enormous and unpredictable mood swings, I've got a great life here. So she had a problem dealing with the kicking-me-out-of-the-nest thing. She thinks that I'm smart enough to appreciate all the nice things she's done to cushion my finding-a-life process, and that I should be jumping at the chance to join the world now while I have her to fall back on.
I guess I'm not that smart. Oh, and all this has been said through crying and blubbering, btw.
But it all gets turned back on her, of course. She says "I just don't know what to do" about a million times, and when I try to point out her inconsistent treatment of me, or try to say what I think the problems are, she completely melts down into tears and hides in her room. Then comes out with a rebuttal five minutes later. The problem is that she turns it all on her. She's screwed up. She's responsible for me failing. She can't enjoy the nice house she has because it's keeping me from experiencing the real world. I fail, so she fails.
So now she's told me she won't ever yell at me ever again, since I've told her that makes it worse. She won't be asking me to spend any more time with her, like off at nurseries to pick out flowers and such. My time is my own, but she said it rather unclearly. I don't know if it means she'll ignore me when we're in the house together and not act like we're friends anymore, for fear of being too nice to me, or if she'll change her mind in a week and we start all over. Or if she'll find some middle ground I've never seen before and don't know how to tread.
At the moment she's fled the house. I think she's in the garage or outside. I'm afraid to talk to her, because I never, ever say the right things. It always comes out wrong, and it makes her assume things about what I think of her or how I feel that aren't true, because I can't seem to say what I mean.
I'm tired, and I'm lost, and I hate this, all of it. I want to say the right things. I want her to stop believing that I'm the only things that gives her life meaning. I want her to see a therapist. I want a million dollars to fall in my lap.
Shit.
I'm going to think of something else to say, and see if she's here so I can talk to her again.
All because I got up at 11 this morning instead of 9. I hate this.