i should have brought another pair of floppy pants.
i don't have another pair of floppy pants.
my hands are dry. where's that lotion. ah.
i shouldn't have said i'd write that article.
why do i agree to do things i don't have time to do.
which iPod playlist will help me fall asleep fastest.
and....
over dinner my mother made this little speech she's made before.
It starts with how nurses always compliment my Dad on how nice and polite he is even with his dementia. And you know, the nurses always complimented my Aunts when they were alive, too, on the same thing.
This is always followed by the comment that my mother isn't terribly nice, and worries that she won't be so nice & polite when she has dementia ("you'll be horrible," I say confidently tonight, "we'll deal with it")...
...but she doesn't really care about that, she's really working up to the main point, which is to say that she's worried I'll be horrible--since "she hears how I talk to my friends on the phone." Which means, how I fight with Loopy, I'm guessing.
"Believe me, I'll still be the nicest person on the ward," I say. "Just look at my generation. There won't be any Dads and Aunt Marys to compare me to."
Ignoring the other Aunt she's referring to, Aunt A, who was a total sociopath.
But you know, in my mom's world, nice is everything. You can be a sociopath as long as you're nice about it.
So this is my mom's long roundabout way of saying I'm not nice enough. Which ranks me below the total sociopath Aunt A, whom Mom hated.
Or do you think I'm imagining this? Maybe she just means exactly what she says....
ha. that'd be a first.
Tuesday, February 14, 2006
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7 comments:
Nice is for losers. Fuck nice. Let's blow some shit up.
(Once I lived in a house with a basement full of shelves of glassware. We cleared an aisle and used it for throwing glass objects against the basement wall. We had a pile of broken glass *this* deep. Awesome stress reliever.)
Um. I think you're reading your mom correctly. Maybe that's crazy of me - especially since I've never met your mom. But I've learned two things when dealing with my family, and I think they generally apply to all family interactions:
1.) There's ALWAYS a subtext.
2.) Family are the only people who can legitimately be incredibly rude and make you feel bad about yourself - and for the most part, you simply have to deal with it.
On point (2) there are two upsides:
a.) You can return the favor
b.) If someone is going to tell you aweful shit about yourself, it might as well be someone you love.
And on point (b), two more things:
i.) Sometimes it's good to hear what, about yourself, folks don't like.
ii.) Most of the time, what they say is total bullshit.
In this case, I'd go with (ii). I don't think you're rude at all. Straight-forward, yes. But that's not rude or mean. In fact, it's something I really like about you! I think the opposite of "nice" in social interaction is not "mean", but rather, "straight-forward". Because "nice" is usually fake. So through my crazy logic, it's actually a little bit of a compliment. I'd take honest, direct, and straightforward over nice and fake any day of the week.
Oh, and what's up with my dividing shit up into two's today? I should get someone to psycho-analyze that for me. Where's SEP? She's good with the Freud stuff. Remember that today is Valentine's!
My grandmother gets more and more negative and paranoid with dementia. The same negative stories and accusations are really wearing. My Dad and uncle who are usually even tempered, get very short tempered themselves. Being direct, rude, short to her, whatever, has no impact on changing my grandmother's behavior or helping them feel any better about what she's saying.
It also gets harder to visit other people, or to have other people help take care of her because of what she says. Which leaves them less time to take breaks for themselves which they need.
Its sad to watch and to anticipate.
I hope that moving there I can help out with the situation. I worry about bringing Alexa into that kind of environment sometimes. I'd take nice from either party any day. And you know how much I hate fakey nicey niceness.
ah, mom doing what she does best: telling cryptic stories about someone else to make you think they're really about you in order to hide the truth that they're really about her. get it?!
i think she's saying "you're not very nice to me."
but really, why? because you won't be the fakey-nice daughter that she was(n't) to her parents? because you want to talk about feelings (not allowed!) or about communicating better (no way!) or about planning for the future (god, no!)? all of that is NOT nice!
so, lovey, don't worry about it. the truth of the matter is that she'll probably never really talk honestly about her concerns (sad) and if you try to she's deflect it (sadder). but neither is your fault. you're your own person (a whole person) and you just have to keep your side of the street clean - that's all. xoxo
and, as for shaka, yeah, those dichtomies are to be expected. i mean what else could come out of your irish/paki - straight/gay - big hands/small ego existence? :) :) :)
xoxo to you too! (was that too harsh? it's meant to be funny!) and happy v-d to you all!
Mush, that was a great way to start my day, thank you.
Shakha, thank you for saying I'm straight-forward and not especially nice. I used to be very nice and totally dishonest, and I hated that, so I have been working on changing for the last 14 years. Glad to know it's working.
Bean, I hear you. I hope I am pleasant to be around when I'm old & demented, but I don't think there are any guarantees. But I think this story was about us, now, rather than genuinely about the future. But, yes. Nice is not everything but also not nothing.
Loopy, I love you and I'll call you from the car. Thank you.
p.s. "big hands/small ego" -- somehow I don't think she means ego. Does she know something I don't? Never mind, don't want to know.
>But I think this story was about us, now, rather than genuinely about the future.
Yes. I know.
>But, yes. Nice is not everything but also not nothing.
Yes.
You were probably looking for agreement about your mom valuing niceness above directness, and indirectly telling you that you weren't nice, and how you felt devalued (yet again) because of it and uncomfortable with her inability to say what she meant directly.
I'm sorry that you felt devalued, and that you are uncomfortable that she couldn't articulate her wishes directly to you.
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