Nina and me

Meanwhile, true to my prediction this morning, "you're dead to me/consider yourself motherless" has reached "pass-the-salt" levels of normalcy. In that, I was exaggerating this morning when I said that we were at "consider yourself motherless"/"yeah, okay mom lemme just finish this article" but by the afternoon, at the beach, we were pretty much there:

Mom [from out of nowhere]: Consider yourself motherless.
A.: [Yawn.]

***

Mom: Who are you seeing tomorrow?
A.: Nina.
Mom: Oh, right.

Now, take a minute to note that the last time we were at Nina's parents' place was right before they moved (in which the least f*ed up thing that happened was when mom tried to bully me into trying on a fur coat). But that's not the subject of this post. The subject of this post is that mom's nonchalance, even in her current mental state, is bewildering.


I would understand if she didn't remember Nina, but I'm intrigued that she doesn't understand how close Nina and I are (and always have been). Which is, like sisters. We grew up together, did everything together. We share an immigrant upbringing, which we navigated together, that'll always bind us.  She's like a sister to me and I'm like a sister to her; her mother is like an aunt to me and I'm like a niece to her. When, at Nina's wedding, people asked how long I've known Nina, the only answer I could come up with was, "as long as I remember being aware of other people, I've known Nina." I get viscerally offended and defensive when someone (i.e., mom) criticizes Nina--I have a gut reaction that surprises even me.

Which is why it's perplexing that mom doesn't see it (and never has). It wasn't two years ago that she last tried to incite some sibling rivalry, which she did all the time when we were kids. That's how sister-like we were: when mom wanted to make me feel inadequate as a kid, she invoked Nina, who did things right. If it worked then--mostly I remember thinking it was just a shitty way to parent--it definitely stopped working long ago. It was actually Nina who spelled it out--and everything she said was spot-on--but she spelled it out in terms of mom's issues with me, which are not baffling; what baffles me is the extent to which mom doesn't understand my relationship with Nina.

It shouldn't. It shouldn't baffle me because mom's world's view isn't what we call "evidence-based." So it shouldn't surprise me that mom clings to her own Koolaid--that I haven't any friends, etc.--in the face of evidence to the contrary. She's expressed surprise (and this was years ago, when her mind still functioned) that I'd called Nina on her birthday or even knew when her birthday was. Even when dad said to her, "well, don't you know when [Nina's mom's] birthday is?" and mom said, "what does that have to do with anything? That's [Nina's mom]. She's expressed surprise when I've made a point to see Nina when we're both in town.

Mom's mental block, denial, etc. regarding my friendship with Nina is a reflection of her broader lack of understanding of me as a fully-formed individual (which Nina astutely pointed out two years ago). I get that. I get that she'd be resistant to the idea of my having an extended family. I don't get that resistance when it's her extended family, too.