Today, Mummy turns 75.  So I woke up early, called my kids (they were both in my oldest son's room, I could hear them) and told them "Make sure you wish Grandma a happy birthday when you come out."  I had literally forgotten about it until last night around midnight, when my dog sat on my phone and turned the screen on and it said "Mom's Birthday Tomorrow" on the notifications.  Oops!  

Well, it all turned out as Mr. Brooks and I went and bought her candy, cakes, ice cream, a decoration, and gifts, all before he left for work.  I was sick yesterday, and feared I'd be sick again today, but our excursion outdoors went off without a hitch.  I found her a fake cactus to put in her room (she loves cacti) and got her a coffee cup that said "Cat Lady" on it.  And I found her chocolates and a fake succulent in a pot and I can't remember what else.  I stuffed an entire gift bag full.  

I don't make a big deal about her birthdays anymore.  Back when she had her faculties about her, we'd all be forced to go out to dinner with her, at a restaurant she picked.  Which was fine, it was her birthday.  But a week later, we'd be forced to go again for my birthday (nobody asked me what I wanted to do), again, at a place she picked.  Oh, I'd tell her where I wanted to go, but I was never allowed.  She always ended up taking us to wherever she felt like going.  If we chose to go out and invited her, she never once went with.  Because she had to be in charge.  During lockdown, we chose to go get sushi for our oldest son's birthday and she had no choice but to be there, since we all lived in the same house and we were eating at home.  And she was livid.  But ever since, she's not said a peep.  Because I yelled at her about it.  We all stopped going out to eat with her a few years ago when she had a meltdown when we picked the restaurant and made her go with for my husband's birthday.  We told her that was the last time.  She tried on the next birthday to plan another dinner and I flat out said "Remember last time?  I meant it when I said we're never going out with you again."  Not only that, she's so rude anymore about people when we're out that she's embarrassing.  Once, she was making fun of an obese family loud enough they could hear her.  That should have been the last time. But her meltdown was big enough that she knew she had done something wrong, even though she never admitted it.  

But ever since moving here and becoming WOTH and she's become GOTH (woman of the house and grandma of the house--she thought she was woman of the house and my husband was man of the house, until I made it very clear that she's the old woman that just lives here and is not in charge), her birthdays are quiet and small and we don't go anywhere.  It's pretty much like any other day, except there is cake and ice cream and gifts.  She doesn't complain, even though I know she's most likely disappointed.  Which sucks and I am not trying to be mean, but her medical issues make it so she can't go anywhere.  So there is nothing I can do about that.  

Though today, she's been saucy.  Maybe she's angry?  But she has days like this, thinking she can boss people around again.  It's funny, how much you forget someone is the way they are until they aren't that way anymore.  And then later, they remind you, and you think "Whoah.  I forgot about this person you used to be.  I am so freaking glad you aren't like this every single day anymore."  

Today, she's been on my oldest son's case (what else is new?) about whatever he's doing.  She was on his case on Sunday, too, when he cooked pork chops for us for Mother's Day.  She kept screaming at him that he was cooking it wrong, even though she has ZERO idea of how to cook a pork chop.  

My mother's identity is wrapped up in the idea she was a fabulous cook.  Turns out, she was a HORRIBLE cook for her entire life and had no idea what she was doing.  It's so narcissistic that she honestly believes she's a great cook and refuses to listen to anyone who tells her otherwise.  Hell, my dad, who was a tugboat operator, used to chuck his lunches out to the sea gulls just so he didn't have to eat her cooking.  And yet, she gets on my son's case, who has learned to cook from Gordon Ramsey (and not me, since he likes food I have no idea how to make), and I think it's because she cannot stand that her scapegoat is so much better than her at everything in every single way.  

So then today, she grabbed ahold of one of our chickens and almost killed it and he's yelling "Let it go, you're hurting it, let it go!" and she refused.  So he snapped at her and she finally let go.  Then he was building a chicken run by our coop and she's bitching at him he's doing it wrong, and he's like "She doesn't even know how to do what I'm doing, why does she think she needs to tell me anything at all??"  He had to snap at her again to get her to shut up.  And then she acts like HE did something wrong.  Way to go, ma, getting your narcissistic supply in yer berfday!  Yee haw!!  

He's 24.  And I am his mom and I know that I shouldn't have to come to his defense all the time (he doesn't like it when I do), but damn, does it piss me off she treats him so badly.  I just want to fart on her plate and say "There is your birthday cake.  Dig in, ye old seahag."  That's our nickname for her, by the way.  It's very fitting.  

Then she says two things to me today that I kept telling my husband "She's lucky it's her freaking birthday."  First, well, second, I'll say the first one last.  Secondly, I got to sit outside with her, something I never do because she smokes (and I can't stand being around her) and she starts in on me about the yard.  I mowed half of the backyard on Mother's Day.  The kids mowed the front, but the back is long as fuck, so I wanted to do it.  I just got a new mower (electric!) and didn't want anyone fucking around with the long grass.  And the battery ran out.  Monday, Mr. Brooks was supposed to finish it, but he just didn't do it for some reason.  I was sick all day, like felt total balls all freaking day (ending with a bad experience) and today it's 90 degrees out.  So there is no way I am mowing in this heat.  I am totally heat intolerant.  And she's all bitching at me today to hire someone.  AND THIS IS WHY I DON'T SIT OUTSIDE WITH YOU, MA!!  She has no idea how to talk to me unless she's asking me to do something for her, or telling me what to do.  I ignored her.  And went back inside.  

Then, right before that, she says in the kitchen "Oh, by the way, how did driving go for you?"  I was like huh??  Whatchoo talkin' about Willis?  And she said "Oh I saw you driving."  I just sneered my eyes at her and said "I drive all the freaking time, don't be weird about it."  Inside, I was livid.  Granted, I know she most likely wasn't being rude to me, but it doesn't matter.  She doesn't get to participate in that part of my life.  How my life goes is NONE if her damn business.  Not after what she's done to me about it all.  

See, I stopped driving back in 2011 or so.  For several years.  My anxiety got so bad back then I suffered from suicidal ideation.  And my mother did everything she could to make it worse for me.  Like, so much so, that she was the reason it got so bad.  She has always been super horrible to be bout my anxiety.  Like not just shaming me privately, like a normal narcissist, but picking on me to others in front of my face to humiliate me and shaming me publicly, just to either get a laugh from someone else, or so it doesn't look bad on her.  She has said things to me that I can never forgive and won't ever even try to.  But I get it, she's an idiot who doesn't understand anything in life.  And I am not even exaggerating here.  So I don't care what she thinks about me anymore.  But I refuse to have her play "nice mom" about it, when she won't even attempt to apologize for what she's done to me.  So fuck her.  She doesn't even know what she's asking me.  She's just got something up her sleeve, whether it's another way to shame me (she knows I drive all the time), or she's just being demented with her dementia.  I don't know, but I do not care.  

When I did try to start driving again, she refused to let me drive her car, for fear I would crash it (she said this out loud in front of people).  I had never been in an accident (except for one when I was 19, though it wasn't my fault) and I drive a thousand times better than her.  But she was publicly humiliating me about it, so it made her feel better to make me look bad, rather than look like a good mother.  But then again, she has no idea what that even looks like.  Well, if she ever paid attention to me, she'd see, but she doesn't see me as I am, just the way she wants me to be. 

I was born with crippling anxiety.  When it gets really bad, it will swerve into the realm of paranoia.  As a child, I was terrified someone was going to break into our house and hurt us.  I was terrified of dark windows, especially since we lived right next to a forest preserve and I just knew that someone in the night was looking back me at as I looked out our open windows.  And they were watching and knew that if my parents left, I'd be ripe for the pickin'.  It didn't help she left me home alone quite regularly, even when I was way too young to be left home alone (not to mention the nights I'd wake up home alone with the back door wide open, as my mother never shut it and would take my father to work at 3am).  I would work myself up into a frenzy, until I was either under the kitchen table, rocking and crying, waiting for them to come back or pressed up against the front door.  We didn't have curtains on the door, so I knew someone could see me through them, but if I pressed myself up against it, nobody could see me and I would be safe.  

My parents would come back, find me under the table, shaking and crying and terrified, but instead of the warm motherly hugs of reassuring safety, all I got was "Jesus fucking Christ" with an eyeroll.  "Get out from under there, what's wrong with you??  We can't even go anywhere without you freaking out!"  I think I was like 7.  Maybe younger.  Why on earth they had to go anywhere in the middle of the day without me was beyond me, and still is.  The funny part is they never worried when I was home alone.  Not at all.  They never called to check on me (though I constantly called them).  They never even thought about me when they were gone.  But they were all I thought about when I was alone.  Where were they?  How long would they be?  Would I be kidnapped or die before they came back? 

This is where it began.  

My anxiety morphed into horrible ways (I got into detail in my memoir, which I will list here when it's available).  And each new way brought more judgement, ridicule, punishments, and cruelty.  It's funny, how you think about things abstractly and you think "It wasn't that bad".  But then you think about all the concrete things, about all the ways she took the one thing that gave me the most grief and not only made it worse but enjoyed doing so.  And then I realize, yes, it really was that bad.  It was worse than I thought it was.  

And then she plays this game, where she asks me about my anxiety, as though she even understands what she's asking.  As though she never did those things.  As though I am not supposed to remember them.  And yet, I remember all of it.  It's all I can remember.  And I am supposed to be nice about it?  So when I said today, "Don't be weird, I drive all the time" in a shitty voice, with a shitty look on my face, on her freaking birthday, I do not feel bad.  She brought this on herself.  She may not put two and two together, as she denies ever doing any of it, but I don't care.  I really don't.  She was a horrible woman who had me in her home and did the minimal amount of work she had to do to get me from point A to point B.  Actually, she didn't do the minimal, she did the least she could do right and still be able to deny it.  Anything worse, and it would be harder to deny.  

In a week is my birthday.  And once she told her husband (not my father) that as a child, I could not wait until my birthday to get gifts, and would always require I get one on her birthday.  She literally made that up.  She was answering his question of "Why do you give my daughters gifts on the other girls' birthday?"  And instead of telling the easy truth, that I have two kids with ASD (though she doesn't know that), I started that when my youngest was born, so that way they'd feel better about waiting six months to get a wrapped gift.  She thought it was freaking stupid.  But soon, she started adopting it and then the boys each got two gifts on their brother's birthday (she dubbed them "unbirthday gifts"). one from the each of us.  But instead, she just out of the blue, made up that total freaking lie.  And he died believing it.  And the saddest part is that he died thinking I was a fucking little brat as a kid, when nothing could be further from the truth.  I loved my mother's birthday!  I loved Mother's Day, too!  I loved giving gifts!  But mostly, I loved giving her gifts.  Because I wanted to please my mother and I knew that giving her stuff was one way to do that.  Even though she always hated what I got her.  But I never realized that as a kid.  She always found some fault with it, but with my ASD, I never picked up on it.  Not until adulthood.  Today she did that to me.  But I just laughed at her and knew that it didn't matter, as I spent very little money on her because I honestly do not give a flying pig's squat about her birthday anymore.  I did buy her things she loves.  But she still found fault in it (though not in my gifts, but with something relating to them).  She is not awake if she not bitching.  That should go on her eventual gravestone.  "If the woman was breathing, she was bitching.  And alas, the bitching has finally stopped."  Will they carve that into it for me?  Oh, I just googled it, maybe not, but I certainly can get an engraved stone with anything I want on it.  HA!   I am so going to bury that right into the ground right under her name.  Look it up on Etsy, they will carve anything.  Score!  That actually makes me feel better. 

Anyways, today was like any other day, other than the fact that she got cake and ice cream and gifts.  She did get bitchy today, but what else is new?  And next week is my birthday, and because she's involved, it will also be boring, because we can't do anything with her, due to her physical issues, and I can't leave her home alone.  But I'm okay with that.  Boring is SOOOOO much better than what it was when I was a kid.  Every birthday was a chance for my parents to get drunk and ruin everything and fistfight each other (or try to fistfight me).  Huh.  Wonder why I hated my birthdays for so many years?  Now, I am okay with boring.  Boring is better than insane.  

Happy Birthday, Ma.  Cheers to a Tuesday.