Self-Love? in Current Events

I left my mother’s today feeling pretty flustered. If anyone is going to manage to get under my skin it is going to be my mother. I’m not mad about it. I just have to process our interaction today so that it won’t bother me again. I can’t tell if everything these days is political or if I am just going out of my way to make everything political and I will admit here that I have been pretty opinionated lately. I had Stockholm syndrome just like everybody else. I was afraid to say the wrong thing and get cancelled for filth. I’m not afraid anymore. It’s super liberating to finally just say what I want when I want… I want to enjoy it while I still can. I went there to visit and dye her hair. Things got brought up in conversation and I did try to hold back and I think I did a good job if I do say so myself. Considering that my patience is as thin as Trump’s hair. Apparently my mother can tell when I am annoyed. People trying to pass off opinions as fact is annoying but for some reason when my mother does it I clench my jaw and stop breathing. It’s not subtle when I hold back, apparently. She kept trying to show me opinion pieces that were just hit pieces against Trump. I showed her which part of the articles were facts, which parts were opinions and how those combined created something misrepresentative of reality. Those articles weren’t even about him but because they had negative connotations they threw Trump around like it was even related. It’s just sensationalistic journalism pretending to be non-partisan. Just let me have my beliefs she says. Sure but I will still challenge opinions because that is how conversations work, no?

What set me off inside was that she accused me of being grandiose. Apparently my words are too big and I’m using them to make people feel dumb. Actually, I’ve always had a rather extensive vocabulary, not to mention a phenomenal grasp of grammar and a superlative command of syntax. I simply chose not to employ them. I tried to explain how everything is dumbed down to an eighth-grade level which keeps everybody at an eighth-grade level. I understand her point because I also get frustrated when English speaking people start sounding like they’re speaking a different language. Russel Brand I love you but stop trying to be Shakespeare. Kidding! Stay brilliant and marry me. I will stop and ask for a definition. I will look up words if I have to and that is fine. It used to make me insecure but that is not their fault. I can learn new words. The sensemaking series that I am slowly working through is dense and requires me to pause and go back and look up words, phrases and meaning all the time. I have to sit there and dissect what they are saying and because I’m a millennial and do not value delayed gratification I get impatient and want to quit. It’s tough but that is how you develop. I’m working on my patience.

I think that this triggered me because I was just put through the wringer yesterday and I was being accused of having various narcissistic traits. I have way too much empathy and self-reflection to be a narcissist. My empathy is so strong in fact that I can beat most narcissists at their own game. I know when I’m being grandiose and self-serving and I’m honest with myself when I am doing it. It’s my job to like me and I suppose that hearing this from my mother would be a loophole. Who doesn’t want their parent’s approval? I don’t need to externalize my validation and self-worth and I suppose that on some level I just assumed that I had that unconditionally from my mother. I can amplify these feelings to justify how cruel the world is but I’m sure that she meant no harm. She is looking out for me. She thinks that I will be unhirable because of my social media posts. That I will be fired because she thinks that I am unable to keep my politics out of the workplace. I understand her concern I just don’t have the same concern. Anyway, I am done ranting. I am just going to finish my wine here and just be the racist, fascist, homophobic, fatphobic, transphobe who is a neo-Nazi sympathizing Ethno nationalist, alt-right, bible thumping, Trump-loving, soulless, unenlightenment, uneducated psychopath that everybody loves to hate and hates to love lol. At the end of the day, I still fucking love me. Nobody is going to change that #SorryNotSorry