crap about my mother

I posted a couple of weeks ago about my mother asking for some jewelry to be returned to her. I couldn't find the jewelry and my mother was insistent that I had it.

So Saturday morning my daughter and I went over to my mother's yard sale. She wasn't set up close enough to the road for many people to see her, and she hadn't advertised in the paper. I decided I'd better just give her some small things, and hang on to the bigger ones for a charity donation. So my daughter and I pulled in, and my mom explained that the landlord's wife had told her to keep it small. So she was away from the road and trying to make everyone happy. While we talked I poked around. I gave my daughter a bag and told her to put whatever she wanted in it, and I'd pay my mom for it. That kept my daughter busy. Then I noticed something on one of the tables- my grandmother's jewelry. Not all of it, but it was the earrings that my mother had insisted were in my possession. I pointed them out to my mom. I was expecting an apology of some sort. I never got one. I think this upset me more than anything. I'm not upset that she is selling the clip-on earrings. I don't need them myself. I'm upset that she accused me, then accused me some more, and had them in her possession the whole time. Plus, all she wanted them for was to sell them. After a while some more friends of my mother's came. One was an ex-boyfriend of hers. He noted that she was selling a fishing pole that he had given her. No apology about that either, and he didn't offer to buy it back. After his buddy made a rude remark, I decided it was time to leave. Other adventures awaited my daughter and I.

Skip forward to Saturday night, and dinner with my father and his girlfriend. I repeated this story about the jewelry and the lack of apology. My father laughed and told his girlfriend. This kind of behavior is just so typical of my mother. It didn't upset him the way it upset me of course, but I think he understands some of my pain.

When I left my mother's apartment on Saturday morning I told her that our weekend was full and we wouldn't be back. Still, she called my house Saturday while I was out to ask me to come back to get the few things I had left. I called her back and told her I'd get it on Mother's Day. Then on Sunday I drove by her apartment on the way to the grocery store. I thought about stopping but saw that she wasn't home. She still wasn't home when I drove by again on my way home. Then after I got home she showed up at my place, on her scooter/moped thing wanting me to come over to her house. I told her we were having lunch and then on our way out again. Again, "I will see you on Mother's Day".. well she doesn't want to wait that long to get rid of the stuff. That's fine with me. If someone else can give her a hand before I can, great. Not the answers she wanted though. She wanted my world to revolve around hers. I can tell. It didn't. I held my ground.

Some day I will have to try to explain things to my daughter. I'm already searching for ways. My daughter got a bag full of stuffed animals and a brand new 1999 Barbie that was still in the box. Might have been a collector's item, but not anymore. My daughter didn't understand the frustration or hear the anger I was feeling. I'm glad now, but some day I will have to warn her because I know the day will come when my mother lashes out at her in some way. I hope my daughter doesn't cry the same way I have over the years. I am just waiting for the other shoe to fall.