Not becoming my mother (on bitterness)

For all the trouble that mom has remembering what was said or decided within the last twenty seconds, she has an excellent memory for epic, soap-operatic stories. And one of the hardest things about retraining myself to be patient with her because Alzheimer's is that I don't want to hear any of these epic dramas once, much less listen to them over and over and over again. I don't mind having six conversations in three minutes about where we got the bread, but I can't stand to let her go on about how I.'s daughter has picked a string of losers.

And that's a recent story; she's carried the baggage of some stories for as long as I can remember--I remember, even as a child, overhearing her as she gossiped on the phone or in person and thinking, "doesn't she have anything better to talk about than other people's personal drama?" Mom has always loved to take sides and to invest a lot of emotional energy in her chosen side (and against the unchosen one), and I've only recently noticed just how much it must weigh her down and how absurd (and Manichean) her side-taking is in the first place. This is partly because she's turned against so many family friends (and also, me). She has a perceived enemy of the month. Each of Nina's parents has held the honor, as have both of dad's closest childhood friends. There's always some story about how someone wronged someone in an unforgivable way. She's tried to get me interested in the neighbors' family soap opera, and I don't particularly care, but I also don't mind that much because it's not a story that brings out rancor in her.


The irony within the irony is that the 'moral' of one of the stories I remember hearing repeated as a teenager was the value of letting things go (or, conversely, the patheticness of holding on). The target was the ex-wife of an old friend of my dad's (the friend and the ex had just reconciled, and mom hated her). The ex, who, in mom's defense, appeared to be an objectively horrible person, abhorred her mother-in-law, and to that day loved to rehash an old grievance about how the MIL had come home one day--we've established that in the Soviet Union, extended families lived together because there wasn't housing, much less money, to go around--and mopped the floor. After she (the ex) had already mopped. As if to send a message. Now, I remember the MIL, and she was a lovely woman. I don't know what was actually going on, as you never do in other people's dramas, but no matter who was in the wrong, the pathetic thing was that this woman was still holding on to the (probably perceived) slight for decades. On that we could all agree.

But there's no pointing out to mom now that she's doing the same thing, toward half the people she knows (including the children of the friend and ex described above, who apparently borrowed and never returned some of mom's beloved books, even though mom explicitly loaned them with the request that they be taken care of and returned in good condition). Douchy to not return things you've borrowed? Without a doubt. Pointless to get agitated and hateful about it ten years later? Even more so.

I'm not just calling out mom; I'm calling attention to how easy it is to fall into the trap. I am not above gossip or pettiness; there's too much temptation out there, though I do like to think I stop short of feeding bitterness and sanctimony. But mom is demonstrating how true it is that abstaining from all of the above is something to do not for the benefit of the apparent targets, but for ourselves--since we are the actual targets.