Arguments by Alice…
My mother and I, like most mothers and daughters, tend to disagree, but, a lot more often than most others. In my opinion the reason for this excessive arguing is because our dysfunctional relationship is more like that of sisters and are more alike than I like to lead on. We tend to argue over the smallest things humanly possible, like innocently leaving your clothes on the bathroom floor or simply forgetting to lock the door when you leave the flat. Now my mother is skilled in escalating the most insignificant thing into an explosive battle. Usually we will end up verbally throwing things at each other as a punishment for things that have no association whatsoever to what the argument started at.
Most fights are forgotten about when dinner arrives or for the truly abominable fights; the next morning. But, the dispute I am recalling lasted longer than anyone expected. It started with not me, but with my brother. My brother and I tend to be extremely protective over each other no matter how often we fight or what we fight about I have such a soft spot for him because he reminds me of my dad.
One day when I was not in a fantastic temper, I overheard my mother screeching down the phone to my brother so impressively loud I could not quite make out the words being hurled out of her mouth.
Once she had finally silenced, I unscrambled the words in my head and made sense of the mess. It turned out my brother had not locked the flat door and gone out, and something could have been taken (but didn’t). He was apparently dense, inconsiderate, and useless and so she went on and on and on and on! I’ll have to explain whenever anything happens with any connection with my brother I always imagine it’s happening to my dad too. I’d also completely lost count of the amount of times all this negativity had been mentioned before and unfortunately I was in that mood where I cannot stand the same thing being repeated seven hundred times neither could I tolerate that she was shouting at my brother.
Hot with irritation I politely asked my mother what her problem was and to tone her voice down and stop taking her mental issues out on him. Less polite than I intended it turned out. She abruptly told me to stop being disrespectful and then told me a completely over exaggerated and bias version of what he did. I told her it was not his fault because he did not know where the keys where to be found therefore he could not possibly lock the door. She snapped childishly “you always take his side”. “Because you are too hard on him” I replied in a matter of fact way.
“No it’s because you don’t know how frustrating it is when...” she went on about how frustrating it is when nobody cares, nobody does a thing to help her, nobody does anything (which is completely untrue as I pointed out to her I did the dishes the night prior to this day). After a few things were said (screamed) the situation somehow grew into a physiological trap. Somehow neither of us could say anything without contradicting what we had previously said.
Usually in debates of this sort I get a bit carried away and manage to stand strong and be more stubborn than I’d like to be, unless, a taboo subject is brought up. My mother also tends to get caught up in times like this one and say things insensitively which I hope she later regrets (although she, like me, is too stubborn to admit). My mother brought up an extremely sensitive subject. We just did not talk about it. It hadn’t been long enough for me to be able to even mention good things about events previous to the disaster leading up to the incident, let alone bad things. I’m not sure if she knew what this meant to me but it really hit me badly.
I welled up, the roof of my mouth felt like it was no longer there, all the muscles tightened in my face, my chest tightened, my eyes tingled, pressure went to my head faster that I could blink, and my legs carried me out of the room. I collapsed on the bathroom tiles in a heap as if I no longer had a backbone; I started to exhale in short sharp motions and occasionally drew back one long breath, tears leaked from my eyes. I felt too weak to be angry. The only thing I could think about was my own experience of the incident. I felt exactly like I did then as I did at the incident. I tried to stay silent but could not help a few ghostly inhales escape which sounded like mini asthma attacks.
After regaining enough strength to become mad at my mother for even bringing it up and become furious she brought it up in a negative manner. I had a shower to recollect my thoughts. Nothing changed. I went to bed feeling the same way. I did not sleep, just waited, and for morning to come or for time to go back to before it happened. I thought for hours and came to the conclusion that I should not waste my life being mad at her, especially when I wasn’t really mad at her. I always manage to make situations complex and philosophical, but the way I see it, I was mad at fate for making the incident happen, and before some worse happens (God forbid) I should enjoy nothing of too much significance happening.
My mum never did apologise officially, but she did in her own way, she bought me a bar of “galaxy” and a magazine and gave me a hug. She didn’t say a word more and now we talk about the good times before the incident casually and almost easily.
