Pre-Christmas Visit

Visiting Mother is always an ordeal. And there was so much drama that led here, which I just haven’t had the spoons to type up just yet. But let’s summarise with: she kept ghosting us as we tried to arrange the visit, while telling my aunt that I was refusing to visit.

So, we rocked up, and miraculously were not greeted with something vile like, “Wasn’t it terrible that that small child got beaten to death?”

Instead, she was still in her PJs and said, “Oh! I wasn’t expecting you so soon.”

It was 12:30-ish. We said “lunchtime”. If anything, we were anticipating being told off for being late.

The house was filthy. This is not normal. Mother usually keeps her house tidy, but not clean. Like, she does housework, but she doesn’t do details. If you drink from a mug, it will certainly have passed through water before it got to you, but there’s also probably dregs of the last 16 drinks that have been in that mug.

This was something else. There was mess everywhere. The house stank of rotten cat food. Every single surface in the kitchen was both filthy and covered in stuff.

When I got to the sink, it was filled with brown water, and looked like every single cup, glass, knife, fork and spoon were in there. When I came to clean it, I realised there was soil all over the place, hence the brown water.

I am germphobic, but with a particular bent towards (food) poisoning – possibly because my mother has poisoned me three times with her haphazard approach to food hygiene standards and searing indifference to “use before” dates.

The original plan had to be to go to a restaurant, but it was 23 December, everything was booked. I absolutely was not going to eat her cooking, so it would have to be takeout.

“We are not eating or drinking a thing unless this house is clean!” I hissed to Raven, who nodded, looking equally repelled.

Raven ran off to Mozzers and bought some cleaning products and sponges, while I started the washing up. This was a multi-wave process. I had to first move everything out of the sink, but since all the surfaces were covered in both junk and dirt, I had to find the least gross way to do this. Then I had to clean the sink and draining area. Then I had to wash the washing up bowl. Then after about an hour of that nonsense, I could finally start the washing up.

Oh, and I had to do this in lukewarm water, because my mother is so tight she won’t turn on the proper hot water unless she’s having a shower. And don’t think she’s a poor widow all broke and struggling. She owns her own house, has plenty in savings – she even has a savings account for her cat, which has £3k in it. Her cat.

(Absolutely nothing gifted or saved for me. Even though all that money came from Dad’s life insurance – he was her husband, sure, but he was my dad too. I think he’d be furious if he knew she was hoarding money for a fucking cat, when his kid still can’t get on the property ladder in her 40s.[And said daughter has never once let a cat go without food, shelter, or expensive medical treatment, so the cat’s comfort is not in question, should Mother pass away.])

So, we’re cleaning up. I’m washing everything in the kitchen, which is covered in just ick. I can’t even think what some of the ick was. Some of it was soil. Some of it was slimy. All of it was smelly. Raven is wiping down the counters, making space, and sorting out the floor.

While we’re doing this, Mother walks in and say, “Let me just get my coat on, and then we’ll go.”

Raven and I eyed each other. “Go where?” I asked.

Then repeated myself three times because she couldn’t/wouldn’t hear me.

A note about my mother’s hearing: Yes, she is losing her hearing. No, she makes no effort to combat this. She does not wear her hearing aids. She does not look at people to see if they’re speaking. She has no interest in other people speaking, even if she can hear them.

You are left with the only option, which is increasing volume until she hears. At which point she acts all hurt and offended. “You don’t have to shout! Why do you always raise your voice at me?”

When she finally processed we were asking where she wanted to go – you know, while I’m up to my eyeballs in washing up, and Raven is busy cleaning the counters and floors – she said, “I don’t know.”

And the thing is, I don’t even know whether this is a sign of pending dementia, or whether it’s just her being so self-centred she didn’t even notice we were in the middle of sanitising her kitchen, to make it safe for her. (Yes, I bleached all of her mugs and cutlery for safety.)

I spent most of the visit ignoring her or hiding from her. At this point, I don’t see the point in even talking. First of all, we’ve got the hearing thing – which is 50% disability, and 50% her attitude towards every other human on the planet. It is exhausting to repeat the same thing a minimum of three times, in increasing volume, to only get a “Don’t shout!” in response.

Next up, she doesn’t care. She’s not interested. Before her hearing got this bad, she would just talk over us whenever she wasn’t interested in what we were talking about. She asked for my advice on how to speak to a solicitor about her will, and just made fun of me the whole time. She interrupted my uncle’s toast to his late wife at her wake to blather at a cousin. She’s just not interested in other human beings.

I mean, why should I bother to talk? She doesn’t know anything about me and she isn’t interested in learning. And I already know everything about her. She’s the centre of the universe and the most victimised person on the planet. Every story she tells is exactly the same. She went to the shop and “that stupid girl” (e.g. whoever waited on her) deliberately did a spiteful and/or expensive thing, in an active and malicious attack against my poor victim of a mother, and isn’t that just terrible?

Believe me, I’d love to hear stories about my dad or what her school was like, or… I don’t know, literally anything that isn’t about what a victim my mother is, but she’s not interested in that.

So, Raven and I cleaned everything in the kitchen. The house still reeked of rotten cat food though.

And then we went out to get fish and chips for dinner.

We came back and Mother was “cleaning the kitchen”. Honestly not sure what she was doing to be honest. But she was pouring hot water on plates to warm them up. Which naturally took about 20 minutes, so the food got cold, as did the plates, so that was well fucking worth it.

I was getting hangry at the time and just snapped, “Can’t we just eat? I haven’t eaten yet today.” (Nor had I had anything to drink, and today I’m in pain. My body is usually dehydrated, because I don’t get thirsty. Ever. But because of this, I drink two bottles of water. All I’d had was half a cup of tea before we left.)

Mother apparently said to Raven, “She has no patience with me.” Husband, the eternal sunshine of my universe, was too pissed off to respond.

Then while Raven fetched something from the kitchen, Mother said, “Can’t we just try to work this out? It’s Christmas. I know I wind you up, but I don’t mean to.”

And I was just aghast.

YOU DON’T “WIND ME UP”, YOU FUCKING NIGHTMARE, YOU TERRORISED, ABUSED, AND GASLIT ME FOR FOUR FUCKING DECADES.

I am not in a snit. I am not wound up. I am trying to work through the trauma that you heaped on me as a child, a teen, and even an adult. And guess what? I’m livid about it. I’m furious that you – with ten more years of life experience than I have now – elected to take out your rage, pain, inadequacies, fear, worry, and jealousy out on a child. I’m outraged that you did that, and then tell me I’m a “filthy liar” and “sick in the head” for remembering my childhood. I’m pissed off that you have no interest in me. I’m annoyed that when I’m sick, your first instinct is to make fun of me, rather than ask if I’m ok. That you make random shit up and get furious that I won’t go along with it. That you treat me like a constant disappointment, even before I’ve had the opportunity to disappoint. That you so obviously loathe me.

I am not “wound up”. I’m enraged.

And boo hoo for you that you’ve finally alienated everyone in your life, and your circle of friends is down to me and Raven, and even we won’t come running every time you throw a tantrum. Cry me a fucking river that you have to live with the consequences of your own selfish and toxic actions.

This is on you.

But what I said was, “I’m here, aren’t I?” because Raven really doesn’t deserve to have me in a feud with Mother over Christmas.

Oh, and I assume it goes without saying, but we were not wished a merry Christmas, or thanked for the cleaning we did or the dinner we bought.