Mom: a status update

I washed my hair in the rain today. I can only do that when it's raining hard and when I'm sufficiently motivated--i.e., I have to wash out henna and I don't want it staining my pristine bathtub or clogging my drain. My mother once washed her hair--or at least showered--in a thunderstorm. Thinking about that made me think of the time before I resented my mother.

My mother was institutionalized this weekend. It was about time--it should have happened sooner but because it takes drastic events to motivate my father, it didn't happen until she wandered off (again). He'd been staying home to keep her from wandering off, but he couldn't stay in the same room all the time and that's when it happened. She's at the point where she thinks that she owns the surrounding houses and that other people are occupying them--and she's happy to confront them over it. She can't be left alone for a second, and my dad couldn't watch her that closely if he wanted to. So the inevitable happened: she wandered off, found police, and was taken to the hospital. Everyone agreed that it was time for her to be under constant care.



I was out and about both when dad called me to say that she'd wandered off and later when the hospital called to tell me what was happening. It hit me that this was a milestone in her decline, even though it was a necessary one, and it made me very sad. As you know, I've often struggled to balance my compassion for my mother with her insufferableness--especially since the insufferableness didn't come new with her illness; it was merely extended and exacerbated. Listening to her rant and rave only reminds me of her persistent, historical ranting and raving--days, weekends, vacations ruined because mom couldn't control her temper. She's been doing it every day, and it's taking a toll on dad. I almost feel--together with the sadness--a sense of justice: she'll finally be unable to hold people hostage with her moods.

And that's where I was when I washed my hair in the rain and thought of mom, and how she wasn't always a source of frustration and venting, at least not for me. I mean, she always had a temper, and she always had her issues (don't we all). I remembered this weekend (before the news) how my childhood weekends were characterized by hours of loading and unloading the car and then driving--and how that influences me to this day (I pack minimally and ahead of time, and I don't love driving). I guess I might have done something with myself this weekend, but that would have entailed getting in the car.

I thought about my mom when she was on extended business trips in other parts of New England. Over the summer, I'd stay with her and very much enjoy it. She'd do tiresome parenting stuff--take me to movies that I'm sure she hated, etc. She'd also leave me alone for long stretches to explore on my own. Ironically, she didn't become a helicopter parent until I grew up, until she couldn't handle me as an adult who made my own choices and lived my own life.

I can't pinpoint when loving mom turned into overbearing mom--the two aren't mutually exclusive and it wasn't a sudden shift, but there was definitely a point, probably in high school and increasingly so through college (definitely, definitely by the first year of college) when mom was more insufferable than not. And it only got worse. So I tried to manage her, and then when she got sick I tried to remember her for who she was before she had to be managed. Part of her knew--probably still knows--that she has issues. Part of her didn't want to be that way but couldn't help it. But there's a point where intentions don't matter and you have to prioritize your sanity over empathy with your abuser. I've always tried to balance the two (hence this blog). I guess it's worked.