When I called my mother to tell her we were flying out to the Bay Area, I was very clear that this was NOT a Christmas trip. I said we were flying out to see my younger sister, that it was not a holiday, that every day my younger sister had energy for visits, we would be at her apartment. I could have not have made it any clearer to my mother that it was not a visit to spend every second with her. After all, I haven't seen my sister in almost 3 years, haven't talked to her in nearly 2, and our time together is limited. As far as I can tell, my parents are going to outlive her and torture me for a few more years so they are not the priority here.

The thing is, when your mother is a narcissist who behaves like a baby when she doesn't get her way, no amount of logic or reasoning does any good. Add to the fire the fact that we are not staying at my parents' house during this short trip, and you have a recipe for 1-word email replies from someone who may as well be 10 instead of 79, and fits of pique of the just-on-the-verge-of-hanging-up-the-phone variety.

The last time we stayed with my parents, it was so horrible that I swore I would never do it again. And in fact, the fallout was so bad when we returned to NY, that I vowed never to visit unless we could find alternative accommodations. And guess what? We haven't been to SF in almost 2 years because every time we sit down to plan a trip, TA and I get so sick to our stomachs from anxiety that we just abandon the whole idea.

Interestingly enough, my older sister claims that whenever we head back to NY from SF, the fallout on her end is impossible to deal with. It's obvious when we're at my parents' house that we're underfoot and totally cramping my mother's style (my father is really easygoing -- duh, how could he put up with such an impossible woman for 50+ years?) and that she can't wait for us to leave. Like, it actually feels like she's checking the clock, counting down the minutes til we pack our bags and go. So I don't understand why not staying with her is such a big deal. She's an asshole when we're there, she probably bitches about us when we're gone, so I don't really get it.

No matter what we do -- stay with them, stay elsewhere -- we're the insensitive jerks. I've decided that since I'm always in the wrong no matter what I do, I'm just going to do what makes me feel less shitty (and I still feel shitty, for the record.) And in the case of this trip to SF, feeling less shitty means staying with friends who will be supportive and sweet, and won't make me feel like an ungrateful daughter. Don't get me wrong, telling my mother that we were not staying with them was AGONY (this is when she nearly hung up the phone on me, I mean I actually said "You're not going to hang up on me" and there was silence on the other end of the phone) and it made me feel SUPER shitty, but after 24 hours I'm feeling better.

Right now it is all about my younger sister who has less than 6 months to live. It is not about my mother.