one of those days

It’s one of those days where I wish I could be anywhere other than where I am. My mother is in one of her moods and what that means is complete agony for the rest of us. She literally drips down her unhappiness on everyone around her. And it hurts

I feel like a small child, although I know I am anything but. Part of me is worried that if I do or say the wrong thing she’s going to leave me. Gah, it sounds so awful to see the words in black and white. How can a grown adult care whether or not their mother leaves them? I feel like I need to be still and quiet but not still and quiet to the point where it looks like I’m not doing anything. It’s akin to walking on a razor’s edge where one small misstep and we’re going to be cut in half. Either way, we lose.

I don’t know why she gets into these moods but the more I pay attention to it, the more I’m realizing it’s been this way for ages. She’s just not a happy person at all and when momma’s not happy, ain’t nobody around her is going to be happy either. And her unhappiness makes me feel miserable. I don’t know what to do to make the world better and I don’t know what to say or how to feel so that I’m not left in a lurch, waiting for things to get even worse and eventually leading to a dark spiral of doom when they do.

She doesn’t care about how her actions impact others. I’ve think I’ve known that for a very long time, but I’ve avoided saying it. Yes, my mother is a bad influence on my mental health and in some ways our relationship feels quite toxic to the point where I feel like I am slowly being poisoned by her. I know she had a horrible upbringing but this brings me back to my post on condemnation where I question whether or not having a horrible upbringing gives you the right to treat others the way you want to. And my thoughts on this are no, absolutely not.

I think we all hope to have perfect parents but most of us don’t. They are each flawed in their own ways, some worse than others. In a lot of ways I think I was nailed with it twice, seeing as both my mother and my father were anything but good parents. My father was abusive to the point where he most likely should have been in prison and my mother just didn’t do anything about it. I still have a hard time deciding which is worse, but because she’s still alive, I think I notice it much more regularly with her. Especially when we dare to condemn anything my father may have done to us when we were younger.

I don’t know what I’m going to do with my day. I keep looking at my clock willing the time to just disappear with hopes that tomorrow will be a better day. I just don’t know though. If she’s been this way for 46 of my years, why would I ever think something is going to change? It’s not like she’s going to wake up one day, realize she’s not a good parent and apologize for it. So, for now, I’ll keep my distance and do whatever I need to do to make it through this day.