A parent with young children forgets that the children will grow up someday and be smarter than they are.  My mother is an opinionated, judgmental, cold hearted bitch and yet she does have a soft side that keeps me here near her trying to help her thru her nineties.  She will live forever because she is focused on herself.  She is hypervigilant from a life of trauma and she is fierce. 

  But I am fierce too.  I have been locked in this horrible battle with her for twelve years now up close and personal.  I have been there for her and yet underneath my nice ways I am seething.  I do not like her.  Every sentence out of her mouth annoys the hell out of me.  I know it could be much worse and that is why I am still here supporting her.  I know there are parents who are so bad you just have to walk away.

    I want to stay away but like a moth to the flame I am drawn to my mother.  How wonderful it would be to want to see her and have fun.  As it is I gird myself for the encounter.  I have to deal with her and in my submissive ways I am very powerful.  I realized that because I have rebelled against her I am a nice person. 

    Many people react to a controling parent by being agressive but I have developed as a submissive.   That means that I control the situation by manipulating the actions by being nice.  I do whatever she says.  I let her hang herself.  It doesn't take long.  Pretty soon she has worked her way into a corner and has to cry uncle.   That is when the nightmare begins.

    I could take her out with just a few well placed words.  I know right where to stick the knife.  She sticks me all the time with her words.  She hurts my feelings and doesn't even realize it or care because she knows she is "right".   I have been such a disappointment to her but here I am the sole person she has to depend on in her nineties.

   ' Hate' and  'Nightmare' are strong words.  This relationship is coloring my whole life and takes the joy out of living.  She is my worst nightmare too.  I spent fifty years getting away from her and now here I am fifteen minutes away.  It is horrible.  There is no sign that she is going to die anytime soon.  It is a terrible situation when you are looking forward to your mother's death.  It is unnatural.

   My friend has predicted that I will be sad when my mother dies.  She says that my pretending to like her will become a real like as time goes on and I hate to admit it but after today I can see that life has many twists and turns so I better just hang on and look for the positive.  I need to quit whining and realize that "I am my mother and my father" which is a Tibetian saying.   I know this woman so well and I am here for her.

    Today was her 94th birthday.  In the past she has completely cut herself off from everyone on this day.  Once she spent the day at the lawyers arranging her will,  another year she took herself out to lunch alone.  Last year her one year old great granddaughter was here and they have birthdays two days apart.  My daughter is also a Leo with a birthday in August so the three lions had quite a visit last summer.  That may have thawed the ice a little. 

    This year mom was a tad more open to hanging out with me.  I offered to take her to the Cheesecake Factory and then we went in the wheelchair all around Fashion Valley.  She loves to look at the thousand dollar purses and the glittering shoes.  There is nothing she would like more than to be rich.  She can't understand why I would not want that too.

   She is in even more pain this year if that is possible.   Her back is all bent over because the pad has disintegrated between her vertebrae.  Now she has a strange bruise on her ankle and the pain has shot up into her leg and hip.  We have been to the doctor and they are calling it a sprained ankle right now.  Pain doesn't stop my mother.  

   She had shingles in her eye last year.  That was horrible.  She beat it.  She said the next thing will kill her.  She wants to go.  I know she does and it needs to happen.  I don't really feel guilty hoping she goes quickly and peacefully and can escape this horrible pain.  But she has a wonderful little house and takes care of herself thru all the pain.  She does appreciate my help.  She does.

    So today she said thank you for the flowers and sweets people gave her.  She tried hard not to complain about how much money everything costs and I tried to let her comments about people wash off my back. 
"Oh look,  a dwarf!"  "There is another old lady but she has a walker."  "Look at that fat lady with the tight blouse."  on and on.....

   But when I left her tonight I have to admit......and this is very difficult for me to even begin to believe....that I do have a mother.  She is not perfect and the "love" she has shown me is not what a normal mother love would be but what is "normal"?   She has done the best she could with the horrible beginning she had as a poor little girl in Indiana.  She married a wonderful man who was a great father.  She saved her money.  

    So "Happy Birthday, Mom".  Ninety four years!   We have been together sixty six of those years and we can make it to the end.  We help each other in different ways.  Thank you for saying "thank you" today.  

   So if I am my mom's worst nightmare I think I have kept it under wraps.  She will never know that I have been so negatively affected by her and I hope we can honestly say we love each other sometime before the end.  I don't know about that since we have both been so disappointing to each other.  But there is always hope.