TMOM*

*That Mother of Mine acronym was created by Lythrum. ;)

It's Crazy Mother Story Time, y'all.

My cousin Diana is flying across country with her husband to visit my mother. Those two are, as the saying goes, thick as thieves. Diana is my least favorite cousin. My childhood interactions with her were rife with friction. She was loud, bossy, and mean as hell. (Some would say that description fits me too. Hmmmm....) As an adult, she's more of the same.

The funny thing is that Diana and I share eerily similar family histories. She has a difficult relationship with her own mother, who has a fractious relationship with my mother. (Are you sensing a trend here?) Diana relies on my mother for comfort and advice and calls her at least once a week to vent about her problems, gossip about her brothers and her own mother, and so on. Like my mother, Diana is a drama queen, so every little thing is a Big Freaking Deal. Those two are peas in a pod, I tell you.

Let me go ahead and get this out of the way: I'm envious of Diana's relationship with my mother. My mother gives her the compassion and attentiveness that I wish she'd show me. Plus I'm willing to bet Diana gets none of the grand guilt trips I get. The way I see it, if she gets the benefits, she should also get the adverse side effects. I'm just sayin'...

So whenever I talk to my mother these days, I get to hear about Diana. A lot. Diana's allergies were acting up a couple of weeks ago, and my mother went on and on about how sorry she felt for Diana and how much she suffered. I was so tempted to chirp, "Oh, she's young, she'll bounce back quickly," which is my mother's standard answer for me whenever I slip up and mention that I'm not feeling well or have to undergo something minor but unpleasant like gallbladder surgery.

I made the mistake of talking to my mother on the phone yesterday. I hadn't made it a point to ask to speak to her during my last couple of phonecalls to check on my parents, so I figured I'd better do the right thing. Of course, the conversation returned to Diana and her impending visit. My mother ordered me to not tell my aunt that Diana and her husband were visiting should my aunt call me. Apparently, It's a Big Sekrit, OMG.

About a month ago, my mother called me at work and demanded to know if it was true that I had talked to her sister recently. Diana had blown the whistle on us, and my mother wanted to verify the details. You'd think I'd been talking to, you know, people with shady connections instead of a family member. She even asked what we'd talked about. When I queried her about the third degree (but in much nicer terms), she turned huffy. Hmmm. She went on to tell me that my aunt had told Diana that we'd spoken, and according to Diana, either I or my aunt had told the other "everything." Ohhhhhhkaaaaay.

I have no idea what "everything" constitutes. My aunt tells me things my mother tells Diana. Like how my mother thinks Diana should have been her daughter. Like how R and I are "rich" and fly all over the country whenever we want. (This was in response, no doubt, to our February trip to Alabama to visit Lythrum, Mawavi, and Quickbeam.) That sort of thing.


I wish I could find a copy of the last letter Diana sent me years ago. It was a humdinger, full of accusations about my coldness towards my mother, my horrible treatment of her, etc. Diana's mother has told me stories about things she's said and done to her own mother that don't exactly put her at the top of the list for Daughter of the Year. Then again, I don't know what to believe whenever I talk to someone who shares my mother's DNA. Diana has proven herself to be a champion fibber, right up there with TMOM.

So I'm in the middle of crazy-making family sh*t right now, and it's getting to me. I gave in to the emotional ache inside and ate junk food and promptly felt guilty and disgusted with myself. I had really weird, mixed up dreams all night long and woke up feeling like an alien in my own skin. It's thundering and lightning outside, and the clouds match my mood. So yay me.

Righto. Enough with the wallowing. I'm going to get ready for church. I'm going to go and ask for forgiveness and pray for comfort and give thanks that I have a crazy mother because there are folks who don't have any kind of mother at all. And maybe, just maybe, I'll figure out a way to deal with all of this crazy-making family sh*t.

Maybe.