Up to Her Old Tricks

My mother is up to her passive-aggressive tricks again. Last night, she left me a voice message on Facebook, Eeyoring dolorously about how she just wanted to check in on me because she heard we were due for lots of rain, and how living "down here is what it is..." It's her bog-standard recipe of neediness and self-pitying guilt trip.

I can only surmise that her big move back down to Florida(for the third time)wasn't the magical panacea for the yawning void of emptiness that is her miserable, friendless, empty life devoid of anything but staring gormlessly at Fox News from morning to night. I wouldn't be surprised if she and PC got into it, either because of his covey of shiftless, thieving, drug-raddled adult children, or because she's getting restless and wants to uproot him in search of some mythical greener pasture that will make her life comfortable and carefree and make her stop hating herself. She refuses to grasp that wherever she goes, there she is.

Well, fuck her. I'm not getting sucked into that no-win game for the thousandth time. She's left me to swing every time, and she voted for Trump and blithely said that if that crone, Betsy DeVos kicked all the disabled people out of mainstream education, they'd just build "special schools" for "people like me". Because there's nothing ominous about that, no sirree, and she certainly didn't benefit from me receiving that education. And who cares if I did? It just gave me uppity notions about my place in the world and the level of decency and respect I deserve from it. That they let me keep breathing and occupying space should be gift enough.

So, I don't give a damn if she's sad or lonely. She did it to herself, and I don't owe her another ounce of my badly-depleted give a fuck. The worst part will be riding out her endless call and pokes and childish insistence that I pay attention to her. It might be a long ride.