**I considered not posting this here because, well, I'm not sure how I feel about airing my dirty laundry in a public forum. But here we go anyway.

Look, ok, here I am. Right here, in this space, existing between just then and in a second. And no matter how much I can wish to be just me right now, I'm not. I'm a collection of every me that came before, a running tally of mistakes and triumphs in human form. There's nothing to be done for it. It is what it is.

And my mother is... well, my mother. She is what she is. It's what she chooses to be, and I can neither fault her or pity her for it. The former is roughly akin to slamming one's head repeatedly into a brick wall, and the other is an emotional black hole. She thrives on pity, on attention, on being the victim. The more pity she gets, the more she does to get it.

It sounds like a cruel thing to say, but it's the truth.

There are so many of the previous incarnations of me that she feels she owns. Rather, I think she feels she owns me wholesale, but *I* feel like she owns my childhood. It was never mine, even as I lived it. That's why I couldn't wait to be free of it, as though I would suddenly stop being the girl and become some self-sufficient woman. As it turns out, growing up doesn't work that way. It's more like building a house than a metamorphosis, and no matter what you do to change it you're still the same person you were.

Which would, obviously, mean that I'm still under her control in some vague sense. My subconscious believes that, even as I'm rolling my eyes at the notion. This is why I never fight back. It's why I apologize when she places blame at my feet. It's been easier to keep my mouth shut to keep things somewhat peaceful.

But perhaps age or distance or just my general lack of good humor lately has caused a shift in the dynamics. I am no longer content to be the punching bag so that no one else is.

So I am here, and she is there, and there are vicious, paranoid notes in my inbox. We are in different places, different worlds almost. I cannot speak her language well enough to make her understand what I'm saying. Simple ideas, like "I don't want to talk to you while you're drinking" become something akin to quantum physics when you aren't speaking the same language.

What if I don't see the beer? No.
What if it's on the phone so I don't know for sure that she's drunk? No.
What about email? No.
Text messages? Myspace? No. And also? No.

So the obvious answer, in her mind, is to call and hang up 12 times in five minutes. It's brilliant! She's not actually talking to me, as per my request, but she makes sure that I know she's there so I can't somehow forget.

Of course, this is my fault, and complaints will be met with that assertion. I may apologize whenever I'm done being juvenile. Of course.

And the answer is so easy. So easy. All I have to do is demand, in my firmest tone of voice (or set of pixels) that she knock it off Right This Second. Because, for all of this nonsense, she cannot stand in the face of confrontation. That's the weak spot, the place that I can lean into and completely own the situation.

One of two things will happen. Choice A is that she starts to behave like a normal human being and badmouths me to everyone in the family and any of my friends she comes across. Choice B is that she stops talking to me due to hurt feelings and badmouths me to everyone in the family and any of my friends that she might come across.

And honestly? Nothing sounds better than having her never talk to me again. This is not hyperbole. This is fatigue from putting up with someone who is very, very mentally ill (and PROUD of it) for all of my life. She won't get help, ever. We've discussed it before, she admits that she has problems... and then laughs about them and says that she's too old to change her ways. Old ladies, she insists, are allowed to do whatever they want. They've earned it, and everyone should just put up with it and respect their elders.

Having that drilled into my head from a young age is probably the reason that I haven't done anything before now. Respect your elders! They've had a hard life! They're allowed to drink as much as they want and throw tea pots at your head when they're too drunk to find their keys!

But last night I began the process of either completely burning the bridge or building one that works. It might not actually become a process, because I may have been auto-disowned and will hereby be shunned. It is difficult to continue a process involving communication when one is shunned and not spoken to, I would guess. But assuming that she decides to continue talking to me in any way, shape, or form, it will be a process.

I am manipulating little old ladies via negative reinforcement, basically. It sounds bad, but I figure that it's slightly more legal than faking the death of my entire family and living under assumed names.

Worst case, as I said to a friend, it will cause a spectacular blowup that will then be cause for many laughs when looking back in a few years. At least it has the potential to make a good story, even if it makes my life hell for a while.

PS - A friend of mine told me today that my situation reminded her of this quote:

"Adulthood isn't an award they'll give you for being a good child. You can waste... years, trying to get someone to give that respect to you, as though it were a sort of promotion or raise in pay. If only you do enough, if only you are good enough. No. You have to just... take it. Give it to yourself, I suppose. Say, I'm sorry you feel like that and walk away. But that's hard."
--- Lois McMaster Bujold, A Civil Campaign, 1999