My kids and I took my mother out for pizza this week to celebrate her 80th birthday.
It went okay but it pisses me off that I let myself briefly turn into a teenager once again.
I can’t exactly remember what triggered it, but I told her about a scene from a Sopranos DVD that my wife and I just watched. Tony and his wife Carmela host a reception at their house after their son Anthony’s Confirmation ceremony. They catch him smoking dope in the garage with a couple of friends. Carmela screams at the kid: “Can’t you be a good Catholic for 15 fucking minutes?!”
At some level, I knew both the swearing and the poke at Catholicism would upset my mother… and it did, though to her credit, not very much and only momentarily.
I have to get better at how I draw my boundaries with her. I know how, but unless I’m vigilant, I relapse.