Life of Wry

Kind of a difficult day.

Seems like every trip south includes some blowup with my mom. Damn.. I wish it weren’t the case, but it is.  There’s an inevitability about it.  There will be a difference of opinion, or a perceived affront, or some poor, pathetic wound that gets pathetically reopened… or all of the above, and, presto, I’m fifteen, aggrieved, and escalating.  My mom’s slightly less volatile, but she can also get going.  At 82, she’s got a lot of general curmudgeony-ness, some unresolved issues, fears and a bit of surface anger that play out.  Our drama, unbecoming, gets silly pretty quickly. Neither of us wants to be having a stupid fight, but the way out requires more grace than either of us can muster on the spot, so it gets awkward.

Then anguished contrition.  I can never believe I’ve allowed myself to get worked up again. I can’t stand that I’ve picked on my mom.  How mean can a person get?  So unnecessary.

Ugh.

If there’s any value in fighting, it’s that once it’s happened, things get much smoother (best, then, if it happens early).  After one of these, the tension is usually gone, bled off like an overfilled tire, and the rest of the visit goes really well.  Our fuses get much longer. We’re softer, more tolerant, more generous.

I will say we’ve become much better at getting to the other side of these.  In the last couple years, I’ve come down to Palos Verdes a LOT, and without fail, every visit, there’s something–an argument, a misunderstanding, hurt of some sort.  So we’ve got a lot of experience with this.  Over time, the battles have grown less brutal; the tension is predictable and inevitable, but the fights are over sooner, and have seemed, in the end, less punishing.  Less emotionally hangover-y. We seem to know how to weather them better.  Trust that, really, there’s love at the core.  That these may just be steps in a process.. or, more likely, some script that’s just been writ–ever thus, as my mom says.

Well today, an argument, not about either of us, but a family member (who shall remain nameless), and it was just a whole lot of tension and frustration that spiraled in dramatic fashion, leading to sweeping (and dire) conclusions and places where there are no solutions (an oft-visited place in our arguments).  After histrionic words and proclamations, more proclamations, and finally retreat to quiet corners to chill, we went out for coffee and then to the beach.

This had to be one of the most beautiful days on the beach ever..  soft air, light breeze, warm and incredibly clear.  Sat and read.  Didn’t talk too much.  Pretty soon, we had the space to smile and everything felt ok.   Tomorrow, we may apologize for things said, but that may not even be necessary.  We’ll see.