Well, I kicked the puppy. But it wasn’t without provocation– not that it changes how I now feel about the whole thing. Before she arrived, I wondered if I’d be able to tell if she’d ever be able to have an honest conversation with me about how her behavior when I was a kid has affected me, but I’d determined to keep my mouth shut. But I just couldn’t.

Things were actually going pretty well up until after dinner Saturday night. I’d picked her up from my brother’s, and actually felt bad for her because of his reticence around her, and how she seemed starved for conversation. We had a nice day visiting one of her favorite haunts and having lunch, and she was cool with and didn’t pout about the fact that I had to do some work, unexpectedly. We went to the movies, had a good time, and came back to have dinner with a friend of mine who’d wanted to meet her.

It went downhill fast. She immediately started trotting out all her stories of how she was a hot shit thirty years ago, and the conversation inevitably turned to smack talking about my father and how he ruined all her hopes and dreams. I changed the subject several times, but she always tried to yank it right back. I just kept changing the subject. As soon as I left the room, though, she took it upon herself to tell this friend, whom she’d never met before, about how my father used to beat her.

I immediately put an end to the night, and drove the friend home after telling her that she needed to get the fuck over it. When I returned, she was apologetic for saying it to company, but not apologetic for saying it at all.

I’ve been trying to get her to understand that I don’t want to hear about what happened thirty years ago over and over again, and that my focus is on what has changed since then. I tried again to get her to understand that I blame her for not trying, because she felt entitled to blame everyone but herself for her predicament. And I tried to get her to understand that I thought that she needed to take some of the responsibility for her own failures, as well as for how we kids turned out.

It’s like I was speaking a different language, as always. Even worse, she accused me of lying, and then of being revisionist, in terms of how she used to talk about my father in front of us. I may be crazy, bu tI am clear-eyed.  My brother, who won’t ever talk about growing up with me, was good enough to say I was remembering things correctly.  She then started trying to defend herself based on stuff that happened before I was born, without ever listening to me say “I don’t care about that, I care about what you never tried to do to get over it.” Despite repeating that it wasn’t about failure after trying, but about not making the effort in the first place, she continued to harp on the same things that predated my birth, not the changing point/opportunity/watershed that my father’s drunk driving arrest presented for us all.  At a certain point the brick wall I was banging my head against became bloody, so I put an end to that conversation, but not before calling her (and defining) the terms narcissist and  psychopath, and telling her that she has rewritten history for herself because she doesn’t want to face the fact that she didn’t to a damned thing to help herself or us until after I’d left for college, even though she knew she ought.

When I woke up Sunday morning, of course there was a long letter that she’d spent all night writing.  (I once moved out on her after a week of no conversation, just stacks of 3 x 5 cards with accusatory notes at the bottom of the stairs to my room.  Obviously, I was not happy to see this letter.)  Of course, none of it was on point. It was all about things that happened before I was born. None of it dealt with what was the entire focus of the conversation– the time from when I was twelve onward, when Dad’s arrest presented us all with an opportunity to try a different tack, even though starting over isn’t an option. The letter did nothing to help, and just made me feel bloody and broken all over again– you’ve never seen passive aggressive like one of my mother’s letters.

I cried a little, emailed my brother with whom I never speak of these things (his choice, not mine) and asked him if he’d be willing to take her for the afternoon and/or the evening, too, in case I couldn’t stand to have her under my roof any longer. And then, of course, when she woke up, she was moping around and crying and feeling sorry for herself– even though I was the only one who had the ight to be mad.  But, as I said, she’s a narcissist and psychopath.  By the time she’d gotten out of bed, she’d rewritten the entire evening before in her head so that it was an unprovoked attack on her.

My brother was kind enough to confirm that I was not a liar or a revisionist, and my dad actually filled in a few things that confirmed what I’d suspected all along, i.e., that while he was not saint, he did not do the things she said he did, and that she was making things up and rewriting history– but damn, is it hard to learn, much less accept, that the worldview your mother brings to bear has nothing to do with you, or with what’s right, or with what’s true– that her perspective is so limited by her selfishness, her self-centeredness, her complete insecurity and paranoia, that she denies history that’s true, and tries to rewrite her own (and everyone else’s) past. Sorry, Mom. Just telling me I’m wrong doesn’t change things.  And even though you’re living on Planet Mom, everyone else around you knows better.

Having her out of the house let me catch my breath, and grit my teeth to get through the evening “family” birthday party, which my dad wanted to host. But honestly– it’s like I did something wrong, the way she is acting, rather than the other way around. And that’s not just limited. That’s insane– and way crazier than I’ve ever been.  I wish I’d kept my mouth shut when I got back, and just told her I wouldn’t discuss it with her, and let her stew in her own juices– but that probably wouldn’t have worked, either, because she’dve picked, picked, picked at me to forgive her until I exploded anyway.

So, now?  Now I know how limited her reality is.  And now?  Now she’ll have to learn how limited our relationship will be as a result.  Or maybe she won’t.  Since I am never going to discuss anything important or heavy with her again, maybe she’ll think everything is happiness and light.  Or at least she’ll tell herself that it’s true, until she believes it.   And me?  I’ll keep my unlimited grief and anger to myself, and limit my resolution of it to therapy, since I can’t expect it to come from the one source that might have been truly healing.