I blame my mother. There's a lot I can forgive her for. After all, I am
now an adult, older than she was when I was growing up with younger
children. I get it. I get that one's time isn't one's own. I get that no
matter how much you do for your family, you still feel selfish. I get
that you have to do things that take time away from them if you are to
maintain even a shred of sanity. And I know that no matter what you do
as a parent, you will be the cause of therapy later in life. If they are
lucky enough to get it and realize how helpful it can be. Ironic that I
say that considering I'm the recovering daughter of a therapist and I
haven't had all that many great experiences "talking it out." Give me a
sand tray or smear of thick oil paint any day. Give me an intuitive tarot reading
or a Rob Brezny horoscope. That's more my style.
But no matter how many charts I have done or things I have "read"
(my handwriting, my eyes, my knees, my past lives), nothing will cure my
anger at the lost keys. Seriously the bane of my privileged existence.
Do you realize that my mother lost her keys every single day? Sometimes
more than once. She did all sorts of things to keep this from happening,
including the infamous "jailer's key ring" a giant brass circle big and
heavy enough to keep them from disappearing out of sight. Did this keep
her from misplacing them? Of course not. Did it keep her from raising
her voice in a high pitched, high stressed whine of panic when she was
supposed to be out of the house already? Not a bit.
One time, I kid you not, she lost her keys in the garbage can! I
mean, for the love of god, how the hell does that happen? And while I
became adept at looking in between the purple velvet couch cushions, and
digging into the many pockets of my mom's overstuffed purse, there are
some places I just never considered.
So now I'm an ostensible grown up. I do a fine job of keeping track
of my keys. My partner on the other hand. Oh my god. It's not that she
loses them every day, but she misplaces them often enough that I find
myself filled with rage and resentment. There's a lot I'm willing to do,
but looking for keys is not one of them. Even when I get the blame for
putting them "somewhere" in a moment of cleaning frenzy.
I'm am righteously indignant in these moments - knowing that my
family history colors my perceptions, expecting her to respect what she
knows about my mother and my past, and get over the fact that I need to
neaten up the mess once in a while. You can, then, only imagine my
embarrassment when we got into a big fight the other day, a fight so
annoying I found myself whispering horrific expletives only
for me to discover that I had misplaced her keys in my purse.
Hey, at least it wasn't the garbage can. That's where I draw the line.
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