Avoiding...or Protecting?

As a 37-year-old, I wish I had reached that point in my life where it's easier to confront a situation and move on. This has always been my downfall with my parents.

My mother called early in the week the week before to ask if I would bring my 19 year old son to her house last weekend for his birthday. She knows how he (who is on the autism spectrum) feels about long car rides, but this is more about her and what she would like. Instead of telling her no, I told her I would not be up on Memorial Day, but we would see about the following weekend, but I already knew the answer for that weekend was also no.

Then, on Friday night, she called and let the land line phone ring a ridiculous number of times before hanging up. It's my personal belief that if someone cannot get to the phone in four rings, it's polite to hang up and call back later. If someone needs 26 rings to get to the phone, they will probably tell someone outright. Anyway, I felt harassed and annoyed, because this sort of phone shit is pretty commonplace for her.

Instead of calling her back and talking to her like an adult and telling her that we weren't coming and just facing up to her petulant pouting, I avoided her like the plague. I didn't answer my phone Saturday, either, and I felt uncomfortable with the little icon on my phone that showed I had a voicemail message, so I entered my voicemail and deleted it without listening to it. She hasn't attempted to call this week at all, which is a relief, and a burden on my guilty conscience.

The adult in me tells me that I must do what I need to do to preserve my sanity. The child in me hears my mother weeping and asking, like a 4-year-old, "Are you mad at me?" The shit of it is, she is like a child, if not quite as young as a 4-year-old. She never grew up. She just stagnated and now I'm afraid of having to parent her like I had to parent my now-deceased father.

She's not a bad person. In fact, she's probably much easier to deal with if you're not related to her. She's just very self-centered. I, on a certain level, feel that it's better if I don't talk to her if I'm going to be annoyed and have a melt-down on her. But, I could just be a coward. I waffle on the issue. On pretty much everything regarding my dysfunctional parents, I ride the fence like a chicken, try to avoid unnecessary drama (which is actually unavoidable), and hide like the rodeo clown when they come charging at me.

But, I know what I truly think. I just can't bring myself to verbalize it to mother. Because hurting her would make me feel like shit. Because when someone hurts her, she soaks it up like a sponge and becomes a martyr and goes to her church and tells everybody and their dog who will listen to her about her child who needs praying for. Because I don't want to really give back to her what she did to me and my sister, intentionally or not, because two wrongs are not one right.

Therapy in the past dealt mostly with my father. I think I need to make another appointment.