I did not see this coming. My Father is the petty, vindictive one, and My Mother is the volcano: She can also get angry at a moment's notice, but she's the volcanic one, spewing a mountainous flow of hatred from her mouth ... and then it appears to be over. She was in rare form tonight.
She got home and wanted me to tell her what a "scoobie" was. I told her, "Uh, a cartoon dog?" She was trying to tell me someone told her about an animal that's in pets. I played charades with her -- "Is it an ant? A tick? A worm? A parasite?" I don't know what the hell she was talking about.
I was going to tell my parents that I'm flying to Switzerland to see my sister's wedding, something I'm not too sure they approve of. Definitely My Father, who still doesn't like the guy she's marrying, wouldn't be cool with it; My Mother, by contrast, actually liked the guy when she met him. So I thought that when it'd be alright if I slipped the news that I was "thinking" about going to see her to My Mother when My Father went downstairs. She saw me staring into my food; she asked me what was wrong, I told her I was thinking. "About what?" she asked. My sister, and the wedding, I replied. My Grandmother, of all people, then talks about my sister sleeping on the plane. She heard me use the Chinese word for "marriage" and, as usual, she didn't hear but that didn't stop her from talking to us.
I tried to correct what I said, but nothin' doin'. "Am I saying the word 'wedding' wrong?" I asked My Fucking Mother. "Just shut your mouth up," she said in her usual understanding-culturally-but-not-totally-getting-the-words-right way. That's when I knew that my intimations seemed to have riled her up. I thought you were cool with the wedding, Mother.
I then paced the entire rest of the performance show of So You Think You Can Dance pacing, thinking up how to break the news to them without getting thrown out. I decided to kick the can down the curb till tomorrow; then I'll tell 'em. And if they don't like it, fuck 'em. I thought we were supposed to be a family, and if one of us gets married, can't we at least fucking go to the thing? I'll go by myself, and I'll tell everybody who's there that my parents don't approve. They'll know my parents are assholes, and that's that.
So I go downstairs to get some pop. I hear someone get up from the master bedroom I pass by, so I stop because it's no use getting my pop now. It's My Fucking Mother, of all people. She wanted me to give my Grandmother money. So I go in like everthing's OK ... except that it's not. My Father starts talking to me about going to work or finding a job, and I respond. I leave, and the next thing I know My Fucking Mother starts in on me. Does she think I'm going to the wedding and she's pissed off about it? And then I say something I regret now but should've said a long time ago, "For the past 33 years you keep yelling at me!"
And My Fucking Mother goes off. I vented about a lot of shit to her once she started in on me -- I told her that I yell at people because they raised me that way -- but the one thing she latched onto was my "33 years" comment. When she gets really pissed off, she can go a hell of a lot longer than My Fucking Father, but the one thing she said in her rant the most was "if you don't like it, get out. Get Out!!!" I had that flush of fear I had the last time she got angry, but I was able to step back, listen to her bitch, realize that much of it was her losing it, and I just let it wash over me. It was weird; I had replayed in my head time after time after time going after my parents with guns blazing if they were going to start picking a fight. But I stopped myself, mostly because 1) she was threatening to kick me out of the house, something I know she doesn't have the balls to do even though she's sounded like she meant it more than ever; and 2) I don't know if I wanted to rock the boat any more because I needed a ride to the airport when I tell them about my trip next week. So I did what I thought I would never do: I listened, talked slowly and softly, and defered to My Fucking Batshit Crazy Mother, even to the point of apologizing for shit just to placate her.
She shut her mouth while My Fucking Father, of all fucking people, became peacemaker. As she was threatening to throw me out of the house, it was he who tried to calm her down. It is The Opposite Fight. Even weirder was I looked to him for support. I had to play one off against the other because if they did agree on kicking me out. ... So even though he said some really stupid things, like I eat my food weird in public and I should look to TV to eat properly -- really, Fuck You, Father, 'cause that really is a stupid thing to recommend even if I do eat funny, which I don't -- I let his shit roll down my back because he was able to step away from our arguing. All this time I was thinking I would have to get by him in order to get a ride to Switzerland. Instead, near the end of our fight I broke the news that I was going. He said OK. Now, he may get pissed off at me tomorrow, but right I now I'll take that.
I still think about what My Fucking Mother used against me in our fight. Most of it was bullshit. In particular, she said that even if she's wrong, I should just let her yell at me. Fuck that. I've had to deal with that garbage for 33 years. That's why I said it! But she also said that she feeds me and houses me, and then I turn around and tell her that she's made my whole life miserable. When she said that, I started to understand some of the pain she feels when she's around me. I don't yap when she asks for something -- well, not as much as she thinks. I am easily frustrated. Hell, she does that to me all the time. But I realize that sometimes that doesn't make her feel all that good when she asks me to, say, help her pay her bills online. Sorry to make you feel that way, mom. I love that you still house me after all these years. Sometimes, you just make me feel like shit, that's all.
To cap off all of this, I finally heard myself not only be pliant towards my rampaging mom but also "listening" to my dad. In fact, I found myself saying "OK," in exactly the same goddamn whiny, now-will-you-please-go-away tone he does it in. I don't think he understood the irony. But I think I kind of understand how he has to deal with his wife sometimes. And so I think I understand him a little more.
A scary and creepy night, folks.
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