A few thoughts before calling it a night

Time: 11:11pm
Feeling: Still sick but getting better 

So my aunt and my god-sister arrived at about 6 this afternoon.  My mom, my brother, and I headed over to my grandfather’s house. ((Everyone who comes up to stay and visit goes there as it is the biggest house in our family ATM, it’s the family house my grandparents bought when they first moved up here and they still had 3 kids living at home))  We exchanged some more Christmas gifts and will do yet more probably when they come over to our house some time later this week.  It was nice.  Although I have once again realized my family is nuts, it’s ok.  I’ve come to accept this fact.  They just never understand why I don’t want to bring people over to meet them…I can’t imagine why.

Well we got back to our house and my mom starts flying off the handle.  My step-father had parked his car at the end of the driveway since he was working on my mom’s car.  I didn’t see the big deal in this and told her to just pull into the driveway and stop whining.  She starts going off "Oh I can’t, I can’t.  I’ll hit his car, it’s not enough room" and I’m like "Mom there’s plenty of room but fine, get out and I’ll do it."  No, instead she makes my little brother hop out of the car and go into the house to tell my step-dad to come out and move his car up.  They proceed to try and have a screaming match in the street; she storms off as he pulls the car in, with plenty of room to spare btw.  They have continued the yell at each other all evening. 

I think I’ve figured out where so many of my weird habits come from, at least so far as relationships go.  They are the reason I probably am so patient when it comes to fighting with others.  Both of them are very hostile kinds of people, it doesn’t take much to get them going and then it takes forever for them to cool off.  Me?  I get annoyed fast but I hate confrontation and I absolutely can NOT stand public arguments.  I will not argue with anyone in a public place, certainly not loudly enough that others would know.  I am embarrassed by these shows.  I can’t understand how people can lose their temper like that in public, honestly.  And my mother does it over everything from bad service at a restaurant to someone just not being fast enough in helping her.  It’s like "Mom, if you didn’t like the service, just don’t leave a good tip.  Don’t stand there making a scene and embarrassing me and them by making a fool of yourself, jeezus!"    Me, I’m kind of passive about most of these things.  Do they annoy me?  Yeah, they do but do I go and act like an idiot because of it? He# no!!!  And while I may get annoyed fast I also cool down fast.  I hardly ever hold grudges against anyone or anything.  I don’t see the point.  I mean, if you hold on to your anger you’re just hurting yourself and wasting precious energy that could be directed elsewhere.  I am a firm believer in karmic justice and have so far not been let down by it.  My enemies always get what’s coming to them and I am content knowing that.  Let life punish them; I will go out and do something great with my time and energy.

I also wonder if part of me is holding back from my life.  I don’t want to end up like my mother.  I know that sounds awful and everyone always goes "You’re just like your mother" and blah-dee-freaking-blah.  But I don’t want to be my mother and I don’t think I will be, thank god.  Not that my mother is a bad person mind you but she’s so…volatile.  My friends and I seriously suspect she is bipolar or something because she has these intense bouts of fury where she is biting off heads left and right, then you do one nice thing and she’s purring like a content kitten, no claws or fangs at all.  And there’s no predicting how she’s going to react to anything.  She’s high-strung too.  The tiniest things can set off her temper and then she’s snippy all day and there’s no dealing with her.  She has almost no patience, she has higher standards than anyone can ever hope to achieve, she’s an attacker by nature I swear to you.  But I sometimes wonder if I hold back from the things I do in order to keep from being anything like my mother.  I know we have a few things in common.  We both love to sing, to be creative in any way.  We both love holidays and having family around us.  We like getting our own way.  But that’s where it ends I think, that’s where it starts to split.

When my mother doesn’t get her own way she spits, and claws, and turns into a complete b!tch to everyone around.  If I don’t get my way I tend to pout but go along anyway, figuring what the hey, it could be fun.  The only time I start getting b!tchy about it is if it’s the same group of people who always do it and I mean like they never let me do the things I want the way I want.  But even then, I rarely get into a confrontation about it.  I just take an alternate route kind of thing.  My mother likes flashy things.  I don’t, I like low-key understated kinds of things.  My mother like flashy car, I like practical cars.  She likes flashy clothes, I like comfortable clothes.  She likes huge flashy pieces of jewelry, I like classic tasteful pieces.  I am more comfortable around a few close friends, she is in her element in front of a room full of strangers.  We’re both pack-rats but she hordes everything while I tend to horde books. 

She married my step-dad ten years ago and to this day I don’t understand why.  They spend as much if not more time fighting than anything else.  It seems they cannot go 24 hours without having at least a minor blow-up.  They are completely opposite personalities.  He’s got a sarcastic sense of humor and sarcasm of any kind goes right over my mother’s head. I should know since I’m a very sarcastic person and have on more than one occasion been threatened because she missed that I was being sarcastic.  He’s not artsy at all, is the Grinch of ALL holidays, and very selfish in this really thoughtless kind of way.  Which I guess is something they have in common so nevermind.  The point is the same.  Ten years later and I still have no idea how they’ve managed to stay together at all, much less why they choose to, other then that at this point it would be costly and tedious what with the house, the mortgage and all.  But who knows.  Maybe they’re both nuts.

Here’s hoping I can find a normal person since I seem to be the most normal person in my family.

PS: Georgie don’t you make one smart remark about that! ;p