I think if I didn’t understand people, their emotions, their wounds, and their motives, if I didn’t internalize so much of other people’s wants, I would be far better off. I’m tired of trying to be what people need. Over the past few years I have tried desperately to better take care of myself and my emotional well being. Post dday I had so many panic attacks I knew my health was suffering. Did I want to die young because I couldn’t cope with the consequences of my husband’s actions. No!

Last week I opted out of the father in law’s 91st birthday dinner. I stayed back at the beautiful Westlake Four Seasons, took my Ibuprofen, and watched some mindless television. It was stress free, if not altogether pain free.

When it comes to my own family, however, I’m not willing to abandon my people. Apparently that’s not working for some. This past weekend my trans daughter (The Pragmatist on this blog) and her girlfriend (nickname: Sunny) of ten years (translate to we have known her for a long while) arrived town for the holidays. The next morning Sunny’s mother arrived from California. Since Sunny would not be traveling south this season she invited her mom up for the weekend before Christmas. I had warned my child that I was far from 100%, so although we would participate in whatever they had planned, I wouldn’t be able to do a lot of cooking or anything physical really. They were supposedly fine with that. The Pragmatist really wanted to go to a winery for lunch with us, Sunny, and her mom on Sunday afternoon. I made the excruciatingly expensive pre-paid fixed price lunch reservations for the lot of us.

So what to do on Saturday? They planned to pick mom up, go for coffee and shopping, grab some groceries and make dinner for all of us at our house. This was fine. Even though these “kids” are fantastic cooks, they are messy as hell and I told them me and my broken shoulder would not be able to clean up. They were supposedly fine with that.

Now anyone actually reading another one of my super long, gotta get this off my chest, blog entries is probably thinking, ah I know where this is going and I wish a messy kitchen was actually my problem, but it wasn’t. Sunny’s mom is vegetarian and the meal was delicious: a beautiful salad, roasted winter squash, and a creamy pasta with tarragon and chanterelle mushrooms. The kitchen was an absolute disaster, not to mention we were eating super late. After dinner the cooks did not make a move on the kitchen. They kept talking about how tired they were, blah blah blah. Blue Eyes ended up doing 90% of kitchen duty with The Peacemaker pitching in a bit, even though he is my best cleaner. After dinner I was informed that Sunny’s mom is also allergic to nuts, so I left the table to track down my phone, which was virtually out of power. I plugged it in and proceeded to email the winery so we wouldn’t have a tragedy on our hands the next day.

I was really exhausted and we all settled in to bed, or so I thought we were settling in to bed for a decent night’s sleep. The Peacemaker was chatting us up, his bedtime is later than ours. Then The Pragmatist arrived to our bedroom and said she had something she needed to discuss. An hour later, bottom line, she and Sunny were really upset that I had dominated the whole dinner conversation talking about myself and I didn’t ask one question of Sunny’s mom. Apparently both Sunny and her mom were stunned into silence by my nonstop chatter. I’m exaggerating the conversation here, but this is what I took away from my child’s criticism of me. In my mind, Sunny was exhausted from a long day with her mom, then cooking dinner, dinner being served at after midnight east coast time, and Sunny is an early to bed girl, also incredibly spoiled and entitled… Mom kept asking me questions, which I politely answered, also very tired and in pain. Blue Eyes generally shuts down in any conversation that doesn’t involve business and the The Peacemaker often listens a lot and speaks little.

My main topic of conversation other than answering questions that were asked of me, was trying to pry out of the kids what exactly would be happening at the beach house next week. That beach house is now my job, and it takes a lot of my time to maintain. The Pragmatist had me block it like two years ago for New Years’ week so they could have a party there with friends. I merely wanted to know who would be there, and how many, and what the plans were. Sunny seemed pretty put off by my asking, but they begrudgingly went through their mental list, 10-15 people!!!! In a house that comfortably sleeps 7, can hold 9 if you push it. Now this little party week is costing me upwards of $12,000, but how dare I ask for a few details. I’ve already warned the cleaner. I can predict the future.

Couple my angst about the beach house with the fact that I had spent part of my day at my parent’s estate sale trying to convince my dad to take the advice of the experts and let them reduce prices the second day and also haul away everything that doesn’t sell. He convinced them to leave it all in the house so they could go through it all AGAIN, even though it would only be items that did not sell and in fact they had already been going through their stuff for WEEKS! Ugh.

I’m actually surprised I was able to participate in dinner conversation at all. Now I love my kids with a kind of unconditional love I don’t bestow on anyone else, especially Blue Eyes now that he has obliterated my trust, but I’m exhausted. I honestly could not believe my child was berating me. This is where me being an intuitive, empathetic, aware person comes in to bite me in the butt. I know Sunny feels responsible for her mother’s happiness. Sunny is the oldest child. Her mother was abandoned by Sunny’s father, then she was in an abusive relationship for something like 14 years. Sunny took care of her younger brother and her mom, emotionally, certainly not financially as mom is a VP at Microsoft. By the end of Saturday, I think she was so exhausted that she needed to offload and I was her target. Scapegoat extraordinaire!

What I wish my child had said and done was be understanding to her girlfriend but let her know that I wasn’t a fair target. To cut me a little slack after everything I’ve been through and the pain I’m in, but no. That didn’t happen and when she left me Saturday night her parting words, “well thanks, Mom, for getting mad at some constructive criticism.”

The truth is, Blue Eyes didn’t even greet Sunny’s mom. His office is across the hall from the kitchen where they were all diligently making dinner at 8:30pm. Blue Eyes went into his office without a word and proceeded to say next to nothing at dinner. While I, on the other hand, gave Sunny’s mom a big warm hug and sat with her at the kitchen table and chatted with her for 30 minutes, both of us contributing to the conversation. At dinner I am the one who fills in the gaps when the kids are exhausted and Blues Eyes is mute. So during the difficult conversation with our oldest child, at past bedtime, Blues Eyes says he’s sorry for not greeting mom and for not participating more and what does our child say, “stop trying to take responsibility for mom.” When The Peacemaker tried to interject, his older sibling says, “just stop, this isn’t about you.” And that’s correct. The whole thing was about Sunny. Sunny being tired. Sunny feeling entitled enough in my home to criticize me for being me.

Sunday’s lunch went swimmingly. I participated as I always do. I said absolutely nothing about myself. Nothing. I asked Sunny’s mom absolutely everything I could possibly think of about her, her time on the dating sites, her new companion, their travel, her moving to Santa Cruz to live with her partner. Then Blue Eyes and Sudha talked pretty much non stop about business for maybe 30 minutes. Sunny talked about herself. The Peacemaker was never brought into the conversation although he participated minimally and listened a lot. As did I. Sunny and our child were thrilled with lunch, with the wine (Blue Eyes and I don’t drink), with the conversation and left the place with beaming smiles. We had to stop for coffee for The Peacemaker just to get him through the 1 hour and 15 minute drive home. Blue Eyes slept the whole way home in the backseat. The others were in a different vehicle.

Sammy said, “hey mom I think that went well.” I merely said, “it seems Sunny is happy, and if Sunny is happy, we should all he happy.”

I went through 40 years of hell with my in-laws. I wouldn’t wish that on anyone. Just not sure why I’m always the one compromising. Well, that’s not true. I do know why, to keep the peace. I guess it’s just easier to tamp down my needs and feelings to create a safe place for everyone else.