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I think I have a problem. I think I hate my mom. I get actively agitated at the thought of having to be anywhere near her, and my pulse and blood pressure go up when I have to interact with her. My stomach is also not thrilled. Hello, acid. I have to make unbelievably measured, thoughtful, deliberate efforts to converse with her, and I still feel like I want to scream, and kick, and say things bluntly and unpleasantly to her. It is killing all available energy to think or function.

We just spent an hour negotiating over boundaries on the critically important issue of my access to doing laundry. Problem #1: an hour.

This is a follow-up to the original Great Laundry Negotiation. Wherein I was given one weekend day, and she was given one weekend day. In addition, I was given one other weekday, while she retained rights to 4/5 weekdays. At the time, the main concession to me was that the weekend day and weekday would be contiguous. So I get 2/7 days, she gets 5/7.

How should I put this? My mom sucks at boundaries. She's got all kinds of boundaries nobody should cross on her, at peril of their life. However, all your boundaries are belong to her.

She does not feel/think/believe that constantly asking if I am done or when I will be done with laundry so she can: water the lawn, take a shower, invite pretty much anybody else to do laundry, etc. is pushing the boundary of my assigned laundry days. No, she is being "accommodating".

Indeed, she would hardly wish to interfere in my laundering activities by diverting the water pressure in so crass a manner. She reacts really well if you try to say no, too. Because, and here I am sure, gentle readers, you are shocked to discover that in spite of her self-delusions, she is not really asking. Seeing a woman in her mumble-mumblth decade literally stomping her foot and walking off petulantly is ... something.

After a good 1-2 months of being asked literally every single week when I would not do laundry, please (obs not how that was phrased), I carefully broached the subject this evening as "... if she would find some alteration to this schedule helpful to her?" (please don't vomit, I managed not to). We had set up rules during the original business about revisiting if the first arrangement wasn't working.

I'm gonna try and sum up a bit, here. Discussing it was welcomed (!) by her, but then the games began. I'm not even sure if she is totally in control of her brain, anymore. To believe she was in control would mean I had to accept that she was one of the most selfish, self-centered, manipulative, dishonest, self-deluding, and basically just horrible people that I have ever met. I'm related, you know? So I kind of have a problem with this. Allow me to pause to refresh your memory that this was about Laundry.

Laundry. This was about doing laundry. I am a horrible person because I find it a waste of my energy to constantly be forced to deal with chaotic access to having clean clothes. I have had the gall to impose structure on her. Apparently, the way to deal with the things that are factually chaotic and uncontrollable in life is MOAR CHAOS.

Um, ok, so once upon a time I was all 'worship entropy, and despair", lulz, but that was a reflection of the nonsense around me at the time I used that as a journal title? Which I changed to 'four things and a lizard'. Not that that matters, now, but the point was I wasn't actually surrendering to the chaos? I was trying to create my own little raindrop of calm?

She's all DRAMA DRAMA DRAMA; woe! woe! despair!; I can't pay the rent! Etc. Excellent expenditure of limited energy, there. She has noooo idea why she just falls asleep sometimes.

Sorry, where was I? Oh, right. Laundry. It's bizarrely impressive how many ways you can pretend you didn't hear what someone has repeated multiple times in multiple ways and pretty monosyllabically clearly, sometimes as a direct answer to your direct question.

Interestingly, though, she just can't bring herself to say, "This is what I want." At this point, I think she only wants it because she can't have it. Possibly part of the problem. I was so close to asking her which part of 'no' she didn't understand. I refrained. Effort probably shortened my life by at least a day. I mean, really, the passive aggressive and other dysfunction is practically artistic.

So, anyway, an hour of my life bought the following agreement: I will cease water-using laundry activities by 7pm on my laundry days. This will accommodate her lawn-watering and evening showering, should any occur. Btw, she tried to convince me that it was revelatory that anyone might water their lawn On A Schedule [clasp pearls here]. She later almost accidentally in passing admitted that this is a thing some people do.

Meanwhile, as we were about to walk away from the table (there was sitting at a table), she was still trying to tell me that I couldn't expect her to respect my laundry boundary. Because chaos. I chose to explain that it was far easier to deal with chaos, even frequent chaos, if you had some sort of regular framework as a baseline.

I honestly don't remember what she said here, but my response was to analogize that if there were an extraordinary circumstance, perhaps she were to commit murder and being able to launder her clothes was something she thought would be helpful, I would be happy to accommodate her need at that time. Based on her response, I suspect that this was not entirely helpful. She and I may have slightly different senses of humor, and my ability to manage controlled and careful speech may have been fraying.

That, and I'm pretty sure at this point that I really seriously do not like my mother anymore. Awkward.