Adjusting

I am trying really, really hard to be more patient with mom. Of course patience is appropriate, and it doesn't seem so hard on paper, but it's not that simple in practice. Here's why:

• I'm not only an introvert, but an activist introvert: I unabashedly believe in and actively defend my right to be left alone (see entire RM blog). It's habit, instinct at this point to recoil, out of principle and boundary-enforcement, when someone talks to me when I don't want to talk. So while there's that added logical step--if mom wants to talk, let her talk--my gut instinct is to snap.
• Mom has been doing this (aggressively talking when I'm clearly in the middle of something) for ages--I alluded to this earlier with regard to mom's more tiresome habits, like critiquing my hair every few minutes--so making the above adjustment (if she wants to talk, let her talk) is more of a leap than it would be if this were a new habit.
• I'm an introvert; it just keeps coming back to that. The first bullet was about principle, but this bullet is just about reality: it's an intrusion when someone aggressively talks to me. And when you try to resist snapping because it's the right thing to do or it's just not worth it, but the offending behavior continues, you only snap harder in the end. A friend and I were talking about that the other day in relation to significant others: you may know in your head that it's worth it to let something go, but if that thing continues to bother you, overlooking it will only backfire.

Mom insisted on talking to me as I did yoga yesterday and as I lifted weights this morning, and the yoga is obvious but the lifting less so; nonetheless, it's still 'my time,' i.e., the time that I don't want to talk to anyone. There's also a mom-factor there, in that she was (1) rambling and not getting to the point--and I kept trying to let it go and wait for her to get to the point, but she just wouldn't; and (2) being very negative about something or other and both dad and I wish she would let go of her past resentments and quit repeating them all the time. So she was going on and on and on and on, and after trying to let it go, I snapped. Not terribly, but it wasn't necessary. I mean, she is the way she is. I need to figure out a way to not snap.