Sunday, October 17, 2010

Dear Mother: Don't Throw Stuff At Me

Dear Mother,

I turned twenty one yesterday (because I'm writing this at two in the morning and today is the new yesterday). I am an adult now. I know I still live with you. I know you still pay my bills--except the ones you don't. Like my school tuition, you don't pay that. And you don't pay for my books. And you don't pay my cell phone bill. And you don't pay my doctor bills anymore, I'm on the hook for that after you didn't pay for the surgery I had like you PROMISED.

So basically, you're paying my food, my heat, my lights, my internet, and sometimes my bus back and forth to school. This is a lot. I will understand and acknowledge this. I even appreciate it. I appreciate it a lot!

This is why I go out of my way not to be a jackass to you. I wash your clothes. I cook your meals. I do the shopping. I do a lot of the cleaning. I don't do things I want to do and should be doing because I am twenty one. And I don't do them because you don't like me to do them.

You do not seem to understand, acknowledge or appreciate this.

So let's have a run down, shall we?

1. I wear noise cancelling headphones. You bought them for me. You bought them for me BECAUSE they were noise cancelling headphones. Because then I wouldn't have to turn my music up so loud, and so then I could put myself into my own little world while working and doing homework. Okay?
This means I CAN'T FUCKING HEAR YOU WHEN MY HEADPHONES ARE IN! I am not IGNORING you. I am not DISRESPECTING YOU! I am not DELIBERATELY BREAKING YOUR HEART AND RUINING YOUR LIFE BECAUSE I AM LISTENING TO MY MUSIC!!!! OKAY!?!? I. JUST. CANNOT. HEAR. YOU. Are we clear on that?
So basically, when the headphones are in and you want something like--the channel changed, your bowl taken to the sink, or the fan turned on, or something equally dumb and that you could do yourself; don't throw a book at me! Don't scream at me and then scream at me because you were screaming at me! Don't throw a ball of yarn at me!
JUST DO IT YOURSELF! You're a grown ass woman who can walk the four steps to the television--because you broke the remote--the seven steps to the sink, or the six steps to the fan, which is exactly between us so it's just as easy for you. Okay? Okay.

2. Shut up about my area. I have a grand total of FOUR FEET in this house. Yes, it's messy. Know why? I don't have a damn place to hold the (very little) I actually own. I used to have more, remember? But your son's boyfriend, who had thrown me down the stairs, and you still didn't make him leave, threw all that out in the snow and there was a lot you couldn't save.
So just shut up about it, okay? Because I would LOVE to move back up into my room and have space, and sleep in the dark with the television off if I feel like it. But every time I bring it up, you have a fit about it because you're not ready for me to.
So pick one.

3. Please start turning the television off before you decide it's bed time. Or let me. I haven't slept properly in months. This could be either because I sleep on a LOVESEAT that doesn't let me lay in any shape but pretzel, or because you insist on the television being on twenty four seven. And then you want it to be on the channel that plays those annoying infomercials that infect my dreams and give me nightmares. But you don't care! As long as you can listen to your Good Morning America or The Today Show or WHATEVER that is just DANDY, isn't it?

4. You have another child. A son. Remember him? Oh right, you prefer to sit on the couch and sob because you feel like he's a failure or something. Whatever. I quit listening. But don't think I'm going to waste my time trying to fix everything for you anymore, because you know how to fix this whole your son thing. Kick him out. You won't. But you know. So just shut up.

5. I love you. But that doesn't mean I'm going to let you be a bitch to me just because it suits you. You know better than that. Fuck.

-love,
Taima

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