The trip home pt 2
I realized something rather profound very shortly after arriving home. It was a shocking realization that "as it was in the beginning, so shall it be in the end" in regards to how we behave.
What I mean by that is just like when we were growing up and through out our teenage years, we thought that we knew better than anyone else. Everyone else was wrong but us, they just wouldn't realize it. No one could tell us a damn thing. And we were as hard headed as billy goats.
Well, the same damn attitude is exhibited in people in their 70's.
Especially if they are related to you.
My brother warned me about it before I came home. I figured that he was blowing things out of proportion in his description of this behavior. Well, he wasn't..... Not by a bloody long shot. While I love my parents dearly, they are maddeningly obstinate and ornery. My mother in a former life must have been a school marm, or barring that the Queen of Sheba. My father had to have been an Arkansas Mule. God as my witness I have never seen two people as stubborn and testy as they are.
I can honestly say that I had not one but 2 rather heated arguments with my mother that came as a result of her bossiness and inability to admit that someone else had a better idea than hers. If there is anyone on this planet who could possibly be more of a control freak I have yet to meet them. It was just so stupid. It was as if she had to be in absolute control of everything. When we ate, where we went, what station the tv was on, etc, etc....
My Dad is more laid back these days, but absolutely refuses to do anything that my mother suggests regarding rehabbing his hip surgery. ( even if she actually is right about it ) When I mentioned walking around the neighborhood to help strengthen his leg he went off on me like a rabid dog.
I guess what really shocked me is how combative they've become. There wasn't one hour that went by where something negative wasn't said, or a squabble wasn't to be had over minutiae. It was pretty damn exhausting to be honest with you. And I got swept up into it just because I was there.
Maybe I was seeing it from an outside view for the first time. I don't know. I just hope they just cool it the next time I'm home. It wasn't pleasant when the arguing was going on. But, I think they've been doing it so long now that this method of communication has become the norm. And that makes me sad. I hate to think of them spending their last years on earth just bickering and fighting with each other.
What I mean by that is just like when we were growing up and through out our teenage years, we thought that we knew better than anyone else. Everyone else was wrong but us, they just wouldn't realize it. No one could tell us a damn thing. And we were as hard headed as billy goats.
Well, the same damn attitude is exhibited in people in their 70's.
Especially if they are related to you.
My brother warned me about it before I came home. I figured that he was blowing things out of proportion in his description of this behavior. Well, he wasn't..... Not by a bloody long shot. While I love my parents dearly, they are maddeningly obstinate and ornery. My mother in a former life must have been a school marm, or barring that the Queen of Sheba. My father had to have been an Arkansas Mule. God as my witness I have never seen two people as stubborn and testy as they are.
I can honestly say that I had not one but 2 rather heated arguments with my mother that came as a result of her bossiness and inability to admit that someone else had a better idea than hers. If there is anyone on this planet who could possibly be more of a control freak I have yet to meet them. It was just so stupid. It was as if she had to be in absolute control of everything. When we ate, where we went, what station the tv was on, etc, etc....
My Dad is more laid back these days, but absolutely refuses to do anything that my mother suggests regarding rehabbing his hip surgery. ( even if she actually is right about it ) When I mentioned walking around the neighborhood to help strengthen his leg he went off on me like a rabid dog.
I guess what really shocked me is how combative they've become. There wasn't one hour that went by where something negative wasn't said, or a squabble wasn't to be had over minutiae. It was pretty damn exhausting to be honest with you. And I got swept up into it just because I was there.
Maybe I was seeing it from an outside view for the first time. I don't know. I just hope they just cool it the next time I'm home. It wasn't pleasant when the arguing was going on. But, I think they've been doing it so long now that this method of communication has become the norm. And that makes me sad. I hate to think of them spending their last years on earth just bickering and fighting with each other.
Comments
I don't know. I sure wish I had all the answers. I like to have all the answers whenever I can (insert snicker here).
However, for me it's interesting because, whenever I start thinking about moving back closer to Mom, something happens that ends up reminding me why I am so far from her in the first place. The dichotomies never cease to amaze me.
Big hugs your way.
Just a thought...I've thought about that myself.
Too deep...more wine. Hasta luego.
Actually I think that we will turn out like our parents to one extent or another. It's genetic, it's sort of inevitable.
Now granted, I think that there are very specific parts of our parents that we absolutely WON'T turn out like as well. All those things that we despised about our own when we were in our teens and 20's.
The things we talked about with friends in the middle of the night that had tears running down our faces. The things that they were wrong for making us endure. Now, THOSE things I don't believe we'll repeat.
But the mannerisms, the know it all attitudes, and the other stuff?
Shit Yeah... We'll do the same thing they are doing. It's just how life goes, Love... We swear we won't be like them, and its almost as if those promises we utter are the nails in our own Karmic coffin..
Or, As Bob Marley wrote in "One Love"
"As it was in the Beginning,
So Shall it be in the End..."