Wednesday, November 28, 2007

Grace

i'm a bit jaded. But, I'm doing my best to compartmentalize and move forward. Forgive my mind-dump. I'm still processing.

It's a pretty unwritten rule that we go to my parents' house for Thanksgiving. This time, I received an email requesting recipes. I decided to let it ride until after the holiday was over with and sent her off an email yesterday evening. I'll spare you the details, but I basically said Fine, be mad at me. But, can't we just put it aside for C's sake? I received a voicemail this morning while on my run. It was pretty curt and was used as a dumping ground. But, she said she was taking the day off of work to get this resolved once and for all and to call her back. Ohhhkay.

I made some bullet points to respond to the comments left on voicemail. Great in theory. It all went awry. We started out civil. Then, we got nasty. Then, we got civil again. Then, we got reeeeeeeeeallllly nasty. Then, she played the martyr and I got really angry. There is nothing that I hate more than that. No, wait. I hate the "show me some respect because I'm your parent" and the "the Lord says" cards more. Those were played, too. She actually told me that she had looked up our Pastor's number on Monday and was going to call him to be an interventionalist. HA!!! Then, she tried to dig up crap from the past (as far back as my leaving home at 18) and I wouldn't take the bait. She wanted to talk about it and I told her straight out that NO, we weren't going to talk about it and to get over it. It happened 20 years ago.

Basically, both of my parents have been offended by R and me and we are disrespectful (HA!) Apparently, I am disrespectful when I stick up for myself (my translation, of course. She said that I'm disrespectful in the way that I speak to her). R was disrespectful because he made a joke about having to kiss her butt all day (and in the same breath told me that they are both upset that he doesn't talk or joke with them anymore). She didn't even remember screaming that I love myself. She would not admit culpability for making absolutely zero effort (phone, mail or visit) to have a relationship with C. She told me how she is scared of me and thinks that I will physically hurt her (I find that fascinating.... fear of retribution for the physical abuse I endured as a teen, perhaps? I never even pushed her away from me when she was hitting me.) She felt that they are justified in making comments about C "because we're family".

I kept asking her what she wanted from me and she kept saying that she wants a relationship with C. I repeatedly told her that I had not stopped that from happening and she wanted to blame me for not driving over to Sarasota at all this year and that they both have full time jobs. I told her numerous times that no, I didn't drive over there, but nothing stopped her from making a phone call or sending a note to him. That's usually the time that she would get all, "you're attacking me!" At one point, she told me that I was using C as a pawn. I laughed and said, "When you use something as a pawn, it is for leverage to get something. What, exactly, am I gaining from this?" Her response was that I was able to hurt her. I again said, "So, what's my payoff here? What, exactly, do I benefit by having these wretched conversations?" (oh, by the way? That's speaking disrespectfully to her.) She had no response to that other than changing the subject.

I was on and off the phone from 10:00 am until 3:00 pm with her, allowing only for time to change to a mobile (to get in the car at 12:20 pm to pick up C), getting back on the mobile after picking him up from school and then getting back on the home phone after returning home.

Just before I arrived at C's school, she was yelling at me and going off on some tangent or another and I finally yelled over her and said, "Look. I have six minutes until I get to C's school. I need to impress upon you that, no matter what you think you're accomplishing by your comments, they hurt." She asked me if so-and-so friend gets comments from her family. I replied, "Yes. And they hurt! And, S gets comments from her mother. And they hurt. And G gets comments from her mother. And, they hurt!" I explained to her that the comments might be said in love but that they still come across as judgment and they hurt, just the same. She finally fell silent and I think it sunk in.

I arrived at the school and called her back after C was in the car. At this point, we both came to the same conclusion that the only way to get past all of this is to agree not to bring any of it up anymore and start with a clean slate. I insisted that we have grace with each other: If I say something that rubs her the wrong way, have grace. If she makes a comment that bristles my skin, I'll have grace. If R (somehow!) manages to offend them by saying absolutely nothing, they'll have grace. She wanted me to know that none of the comments are meant to be judgmental and that they are on our side. I told her that, with constant judgment from society, is isn't going to be a natural inclination to discern the difference but that I would realize that I'm probably going to be hypersensitive and have grace. I also asked her to have grace by being sensitive to how she chooses to say things, especially in front of C.

The conversation ended amicably and we have plans to get together for Christmas. (oh, and apparently her email for the recipe was her feeble attempt at reaching out to find out our plans for Thanksgiving. Huh? What she didn't say was that she wanted me to make the first move by responding with a "What are we doing?" ) I'm truly going to try to make this work. I can't change who they are. I can't change what has happened. But, I can change how I choose to react to them from this point on.