I'm out in the dining room because I really, really need to catch up on my receipts. (It's almost the end of October and I haven't even done it for September yet.) I rarely do this because I don't want to be bothered by my parents.
Mother comes upstairs. She asks me, out of the blue, for no discernible reason, "What are you doing?"
"I'm doing paperwork."
For some fucking reason she repeats herself: "What are you doing?"
She heard me the first time, I know it -- "I'm doing paperwork!"
"You don't have to shout. You sound like you want to fight. I ask because I care about you."
See, she's said that bullshit all her life. The woman who flipped out at me after she found out my cousin had a baby and she thought I was keeping that a secret from her is accusing me of overreacting. Fucking rich.
For all these years I have relied on my reasons (more like justifications) for me reacting to her in that way. I had a train of thought that she derailed. Or, I felt that if I said something nice to her back, that would give her an in to talk about other things I didn't want to talk about. Or I thought it was just a dumb thing to answer to so I didn't. But after this spat last night, I think it's something else: This is a way for her to impose herself on me. This "What are you doing line?" isn't genuine curiosity. For fuck's sake, she could see me work on my receipts on the table, she didn't have to ask me that. Instead, she said that because she wanted to bother me. She wanted to impose herself on me. And, more than that, she wanted to pick a fight with me. She's so goddamn insecure about herself that she will probe and parse every letter I say to her to see if she can spin it into an insult. She can then go after me and feel justified in doing so. That's how she lives. That's how she thrives. Man, I really like this theory.
And now I'll have to reap the whirlwind. As is her modus operandi, in the future, My Fucking Mother will start yelling at me for something unrelated to this perceived slight last night that she has now stored in her rage bank.
You know, I kind of feel the same way about my boss right now. See, near the end of the workday yesterday (Tuesday), I was performing a work task on my own. I was freelancing, but in my job I am given latitude to freelance. My boss told me as much; in fact, he said at the time that figuring out what to do on my own will become expected of me. But after I got done doing what I thought was best for the department, he sent me an e-mail telling me what I should be doing for the rest of the day. "At the end of the day, it is expected that you would be doing either 'x' or 'y,'" he said. Obvious inference: Doing "x" or "y" instead of the thing I was doing.
I don't think it was that big of a deal. Maybe it isn't on his end, either. And maybe I'm taking it the wrong way; I don't know him like I do My Fucking Mother. And yet I still can't shake the feeling that he saw me doing what I thought was the right thing to do and passive-aggressively saying, "No, why the hell are you doing that?" So, if that is the message he was trying to convey, and I play dumb and continue freelancing like I do, is he going to come down on me? I don't know.
There are a lot of things I just don't know right now. Well, besides humans suck.
Mother comes upstairs. She asks me, out of the blue, for no discernible reason, "What are you doing?"
"I'm doing paperwork."
For some fucking reason she repeats herself: "What are you doing?"
She heard me the first time, I know it -- "I'm doing paperwork!"
"You don't have to shout. You sound like you want to fight. I ask because I care about you."
See, she's said that bullshit all her life. The woman who flipped out at me after she found out my cousin had a baby and she thought I was keeping that a secret from her is accusing me of overreacting. Fucking rich.
For all these years I have relied on my reasons (more like justifications) for me reacting to her in that way. I had a train of thought that she derailed. Or, I felt that if I said something nice to her back, that would give her an in to talk about other things I didn't want to talk about. Or I thought it was just a dumb thing to answer to so I didn't. But after this spat last night, I think it's something else: This is a way for her to impose herself on me. This "What are you doing line?" isn't genuine curiosity. For fuck's sake, she could see me work on my receipts on the table, she didn't have to ask me that. Instead, she said that because she wanted to bother me. She wanted to impose herself on me. And, more than that, she wanted to pick a fight with me. She's so goddamn insecure about herself that she will probe and parse every letter I say to her to see if she can spin it into an insult. She can then go after me and feel justified in doing so. That's how she lives. That's how she thrives. Man, I really like this theory.
And now I'll have to reap the whirlwind. As is her modus operandi, in the future, My Fucking Mother will start yelling at me for something unrelated to this perceived slight last night that she has now stored in her rage bank.
You know, I kind of feel the same way about my boss right now. See, near the end of the workday yesterday (Tuesday), I was performing a work task on my own. I was freelancing, but in my job I am given latitude to freelance. My boss told me as much; in fact, he said at the time that figuring out what to do on my own will become expected of me. But after I got done doing what I thought was best for the department, he sent me an e-mail telling me what I should be doing for the rest of the day. "At the end of the day, it is expected that you would be doing either 'x' or 'y,'" he said. Obvious inference: Doing "x" or "y" instead of the thing I was doing.
I don't think it was that big of a deal. Maybe it isn't on his end, either. And maybe I'm taking it the wrong way; I don't know him like I do My Fucking Mother. And yet I still can't shake the feeling that he saw me doing what I thought was the right thing to do and passive-aggressively saying, "No, why the hell are you doing that?" So, if that is the message he was trying to convey, and I play dumb and continue freelancing like I do, is he going to come down on me? I don't know.
There are a lot of things I just don't know right now. Well, besides humans suck.
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