Today I bought a sympathy card for an old neighbor who's mother just died.  My mother asked me to buy it, even though she hated them.  Right before we moved, she used to talk shit about the husband in her yard loud enough for him to hear her.  She's always been pretty volatile.   But only when she has power.  When you take her power away, she becomes more docile...well, not really, she just appears that way.  Behind your back, she's just as saucy as ever.  

Anyways, so I bought the card and I realized something: if I am picking it out?  I am paying for it?  And I am paying for the stamp?  Then I'll be damned if I am not going to sign it!  So I signed my mother's name first, and then mine and my hubby's and both our kids.  Back when the kids were little, our kids and the neighbor's kids used to be best friends.  So I deserve to be included on the card.  So I addressed it, stamped it, and put it in the mailbox.  I did have in on the fridge first, so she could see it, but she never cared to look, so I went out stuck it in the mailbox.  

And this shouldn't matter, right?  I mean, I should be able to just do something like this and not give a crap.  But here I am, getting triggered, due to the fact how she used to treat me when it came to her mail.  

Back before 2020, we lived in the same duplex.  And we had the same landlord (obviously).  And so I talked her into sending him money orders instead of checks for our rent because he never cashed the checks until a month later (he was eighty years old--so it was always a guess if maybe he died before cashing them).  She had me go and buy the money orders each month, but she never let me send hers in the mail.  She even would force me to drive her to the mailbox to go send it, because for some reason putting them in her mailbox at home was unsafe.  She wouldn't even let me get out of the car to put them in the mailbox, she had to do it.  It was kind of insane.  Eventually, I would just send them at the store and not even bring it home for her to sign (I'd sign them for her).  And at first, she was angry, but she eventually got used to it and got over it.

But then we moved here and she started doing the same thing.  I wasn't allowed to send her mail.  When we left our old duplex, we both owed our landlord money for rent.  She owed him lots of money because she had dementia and forgot to pay him much of the time and my husband and I owed him because we were poor as fuck and we owed him from the time we moved in and had no jobs and no car.  And even though he said it was cool to move in and not pay him in exchange for cleaning the place, he still threatened us with a lawsuit.  So what did my mother do in 2020 after we moved in here?  Sent him a fucking Christmas card.  Even though I told her not to.  Even though I explained why it was a bad idea.  She treated me as though I was a little kid again, asking her not to smoke in the house because she was poisoning my lungs.  To which she just laughed with her condescending laugh said "Oh Shay, you are a child and I am the adult.  What right do you have to ask this of me?" 

And she refused to let me put them in the mailbox.  Granted, this was the one and only time I messed with her mail.  But all the other times made ZERO sense, as I have never messed with her mail before.  I have no idea what she thought I was going to do, especially when she'd have me purchase her rent money order for her...if I was going to mess with something, that would be the time to mess with it.  But she never trusted me and I have no idea why.  I mean, I get it.  She wanted me to feel bad about myself and this was just one more way to get the job done.  But I did what I had to do that day, and I went out to the mailbox after she went to bed and took that damn Christmas card out and threw it in my burning pit and burned it.  Because I'll be damned if I was going to let her tell him where we lived so he could come after us (as I have no proof he said we could move in without paying, as he told me this on the phone--some months he forgot I even paid him rent!).  Any normal mother would have stuck up for us, knowing what he told us we could move in, but not her.  She always takes the opposing side, even when they are so very are wrong.  

But for years, she's been that way about her mail with me.  As though somehow I was going to steal it or something?  Sure, I did it once, but only to protect my family.  All the years before that, I never once did anything like that to her.  It was like was punishing me for something she assumed I did, but didn't.  And now I sent the card she requested me to get for her (again, for what reason, I have no clue, as she hates the people...but then again, that's a narcissist for you), and I'm waiting for her to get angry.  But why do I even care?  Let her be mad.  She'd look pretty dumb if she went and bought another card and send it herself (well, they'd probably blame it on her dementia).  And I think that's more what I fear.  That what I did will not be good enough (because she was getting the card for herself and herself alone...not even thinking that we used to know these people for longer than she did and should be included) and she will be stupid about it.  Because it will hurt my feelings.  Which is stupid, I know, but I can't ever not let it hurt my feelings when she treats me that way.  

I hate that something as simple as buying a card for someone has to be so dumb and triggering.  It doesn't help that she was kind of rude to me right before she went to bed, after I had put the card on the fridge.  So my mind ran in different directions:  Did she see the card and was angry I signed it with everyone's names?  Was she angry thinking I didn't buy a card?  Etc. etc.  Why am I like this?  I need to let her covert abuse go, and just stop caring.  But I can't find that magic wand that does that for me.  I did with my father.  But can't seem to do it with her.  Granted, Pa was dead twelve years by the time I found that wand, so that made it quite easier.  And I live with the crazy woman who is still doing dumb things to me on a regular basis, so I can't seem to find that space where I can just not care anymore.  I had it once.  It took me a year, but I had it.  When I was no contact for fourteen months.  And I finally found that space.  But in 2018, I lost it again.  Sigh.  

Well, I'm going to go untrigger myself by watching Nancy Drew on HBOMAX (though that show is kind of gross at times, yuck!).  Hopefully mother won't even care I sent it.  She won't say thank you, she never does, but maybe she'll just finally trust me enough to do the right thing for once.  I mean I doubt it, but maybe she'll just either choose not to care about it or forget.  I can only hope. Sigh.