Menopause

Yeah. That's right. I said it.

My mom. She's going through menopause. It's like the worst PMS of all time, except at the end, there's no period. Ever.

Anyway, with it comes the emotional rollercoaster ride of a woman whose hormones have gone completely out of their way to wrench rational thought and emotional stability from them and leave them a whimpering mass of tears, hot flashes, irrational fears, odd food cravings and the onset of osteoporosis.

I picked her up from the Library today, and she starts talking to me about her worries, and all the millions of things going on in her head, and this and that and the other thing, and it's not really a big deal, cause I think it's kinda funny anyway. I recognize that a lot of the things she's feeling is the result of her emotions getting the better of her, and that it's even more pronounced since all the irrationality has to be focused onto the non-professional aspects of her life, i.e. homelife. I'm laughing in the car on the way home until she busts out the, worried about me, that I'm going to go nowhere, and squander my time in Japan on booze and drugs and wound up strung out on the street somewhere penniliess and disease ridden.

I, despite my generally cool demeaner, flipped my lid. That really pisses me off. To hear from my mother of all people that she thinks that's what's going to happen to me. So I told her, you know, you need to have some faith in me. I'm your son. I don't ever, ever want to hear you tell me that again.
She says, but, I really do worry about these things.
Well, have some faith. I don't care, we all worry, but don't tell me this shit.
I'm trying to-
No, mom. You can't try to have faith! You do, or you don't! And if you don't, then don't tell me!
I promptly got out of the car, and left. It took her a couple of minutes before she came inside.

I just think that's the biggest load of crap. It's like people forget that they're a parent or something. I don't care if you're worried about that sort of thing. You don't actually tell your child three weeks before they embark on a journey which marks the start of my adult life that you think they're going to end up strung out on the streets somewhere. If, by some Godawful twist of fate, you ACTUALLY think that about someone, you keep it to your goddam self. The last thing in the world I want to know is that my own MOTHER thinks I'm going to fail in life. Maybe not thinks I will, but worries I will. For Christ's sake, I don't want to hear that shit. How am I supposed to do anything with myself burdened with the knowledge that my mother is banking on my failure?

I mean, I guess, ugh. It'll be easy to put her fears to rest, but, it's an insult. At the same time, it makes me wonder what I did to make her think these things. Maybe it's cause I'm within an inch of it here already. Who knows. But whatever. I know that I will prove her fears unfounded shortly, and maybe then she'll stop with this crap. Probably not though, because I hear menopause takes a couple years.