More Mother(board) Issues

Hi again. So this is the original post that I was thinking about posting in the first entry that I posted tonight, when I said that I was going to "re-post another post from a while ago that I also just re-read, and I feel is relevant to my life again". Sorry if that was confusing :P, but here are bits and pieces of the post:

I remember a while ago I was having a conversation with my best friend from home about my mom (I feel like that's a topic that kind of dominates our conversations...but it's a huge problem in my life because we pretty much don't see eye to eye on ANYTHING and things that I think would be easier / better to do usually aren't to her) and she said that I have to pick my fights. To quote her, she said:

"Your mom seems to pick a fight over everything and you can't change that, so you have to really really think about what you want to fight back about. If you don't think it's worth fighting about, then just don't fight back, even if that means you say "you're right" and move on. You have to find the words to say to shut down the argument, even if it's just a nod and an "ok". Ok doesn't mean you agree, it means you are listening. You have to try. You could even say "I don't want to argue about this." It might be trial and error, but you either argue with her or give her attitude when she picks a fight, or you do whatever you can to diffuse the situation, not both".

The reason why I brought this up is because I feel like this is the hardest thing for me to figure out, especially now, with what's going on with John (there have been some recent developments which I will talk about in a bit). In general I feel like I never know what to say / when to say it in certain situations with my mom. Because she picks a fight / makes a big deal about almost everything, it is hard to know what to say to her in general. I feel like, instinctively, when I am trying to defend myself my voice naturally rises. It's not something that I can usually detect / notice...but my mom tells me all the time that I am "raising my voice to her" or "giving her an attitude".

Today I learned that at least for right now, I should just do whatever my mom tells me to do no matter what, and don't question it / argue. We got into a huge fight because we went to get manicures and then I wanted to go to the post office to get something and my phone started to ring while I was there and I didn't want to mess up my nails and my mom was waiting for me, and I ended up missing the call (It was nothing really important anyway...just my cousin trying to call me because he's coming for dinner tonight) and messing up my nails and my mom offered to take me so they could get fixed but I knew she wanted to get home to be there for my brother when he got home, so I told her to just go home and that I wasn't getting out of the car and she basically told me that I was acting like a baby so I rushed out of the car and to the nail place and let them fix my nails but of course we continued to fight on the way home because I had picked a stupid thing to fight about in the first place. End of story. Again, I feel like this (at least this part of the entry) is one of those things that I am going to look back at and think that it was stupid. Because it WAS.

Basically, my mom and I have been fighting over REALLY STUPID things again lately. I guess because I thought that I wasn't going to have to go through this whole cancer thing again, I kind of forgot how to pick and choose what to fight about. I feel like this happens to me a lot. Something will happen that is not particularly enjoyable or pleasant, and I'll block it out of my mind, and then it will happen again in the future and I'll forget how I handled it / be stuck in the same position I was the first time it happened. I feel like I should be learning from my mistakes, but maybe the fact that they are surrounded by bad things that are happening makes them harder to learn from.

Again, I think that's all I wanted to say for right now. I'm kinda tired and should probably go to sleep as I have to go back to the city tomorrow and this week is going to be really busy. I have three words for you before I go, which I will elaborate on in a future entry: FLORIDA ON FRIDAY!!!!!!!! :D

More soon,

--Emily