Just Shut Up

 

Mary Freaking Lou is my mother.  We just spent a week together on vacation.  For six days we tip-toed around.  And on the last day, the seventh day, we spent the entire time together in the car.  She barely spoke.  She did, however, pick her nose several times.

It was a huge mistake to think I could be with her for that long without inviting disaster.  From the age of about 14 I knew it was a bad idea to spend time in the car with mom.  That was the year she back-handed me while driving, making my nose bleed.

However, Penny and hot stuff Mike took off in the rental Mustang, laughing all the way, as my husband rode in our back seat and I drove, leaving mother dear up front.  She did not want to walk anywhere, did not want to get out of the car, did not ever OOOHH or AAAHHH about the beauty before us. 

She did seem happy when we stopped at Cold Stone Creamery.  She enjoyed her ice cream so much that, once finished with the scoop, she licked the drippings off the outside of the cup.  I have never spent time with anyone so obsessed with food.

For my entire life I have wanted to tell my mother to shut up.  When I was 10, when I was 12, when I was 16, when I was 25 and 30 and 40.  She has spoken so many unnecessary words over the years, most of them idiotic.  Well, I finally did it.  I actually said it twice. 

After she told my sister that she could find a new job (Penny works for Mom), I said “Mom, shut the fuck up.”  Penny’s crime?  Asking Mom to get packed.  It was 10:45 p.m. and they had to leave for the airport the next morning by 7 a.m. 

She replied, “You shut the fuck up.”  Then I told her, “Someone should have told you to shut the fuck up for my entire childhood.”  I thought she was going to attack me.  Instead, her response was “You fucked up your own life.”

I am strangely relieved and guilt-ridden all at the same time.  I also told her a few other things.  I mentioned that I don’t think she even likes me, since she never attempts real conversation.  She said, “About what?”  I told her to stop complaining about her husband, since she knew he was a moron when she married him.  I told her she should buy my brother some more sugar-laden salad dressing.

My brother sat through it all, never looking away from the TV screen, never opening his mouth.  I’m pretty sure he found it all rather entertaining.

I apologized, twice.  I don’t feel good at all about what happened.  But finally I was honest.  I spoke my mind.  I did what so many people before me should have done.  I finally didn’t care if she hit me. 

I was standing up for my sister, for my little brother, my step-sister, my step-brother, my father, my grandparents, and all the other people mom has bullied her entire life.  I was speaking out to the monster that lay in wait behind the door of my house every day I returned home from school and asked others, “How is she today?”

My mother taught me to be a people pleaser, to keep my mouth shut, to cower in the corner, to appease her at every turn, to back down to loud mouth bullies, and that’s no way to live.

I finally spoke up for myself.  It’s about time.