A Writer's Notebook, Day Seven-Hundred-And-Sixty-Two

As I have mentioned, I've had some tension with my family recently.  In part, this has been exacerbated by the fact that Melissa and I are eating dinner quite a lot at my Mother's house, as we do not really have a functional kitchen at the moment.  As a result, I've been attempting to take on a lot of the cooking duties, as I do like cooking and I would like to be able to feed my mother and my brother, Eugene, who has been staying with her during the pandemic.  We have been social distancing, but decided to include each other in one bubble, and so it is not a major issue for us to spend time there in that sense.  Their are many problems, and to get into the larger issues involved is too... involved.  But to offer a small illustration, I want to describe a bit about what happened today.  I went over to Mom's around noon.  For some reason, my mother has been deciding to eat quite a bit earlier than my family always has.  Melissa used to be annoyed that Mom always wanted to eat after seven-thirty in the evening, and now the opposite is true.  My mother is annoyed and upset if dinner is much after six or six-thirty.  So, I decided I was going to make certain I could have the meal prepared for that time.  I had tried this before, but it had been too complicated and other issues had made it impossible to get previous efforts together when she wanted.  Much of this is due to interference and intrusion of various sorts, as well as to my own decision to do things that were complicated, which I normally could handle in other circumstances, but working in my Mom's kitchen is not ideal for me in many ways, so I tend to get slowed down.  A few nights ago, however, Mom commented that we should use up some leftover tomato sauce as well as some ricotta that had not been used at all.  I suggested I could make a baked ziti, as I knew it not only used those ingredients, but I could have it prepped in advance and ready to go in time to make the table at whatever time was determined, as long as I had a bit of prep to just get it cooked.  I figured I could throw it in at round five and be good to go.  Beyond all of this, I know my mother likes baked ziti.  It has been a regular thing for her to order in restaurants since my childhood, so I thought it would suit her, but I did not make any assumptions about this.  As I said, the idea came up several days ago, and I mentioned that I was thinking of doing it several times without anything but agreement.  

So, I went to the house around noon, as I mentioned before, in order to start work on the meal.  I had the pasta cooking and was working on some other elements for the dish when my mother decided to announce that she did not want pasta for dinner.  Now, I would not have cared if she had said something a day ago, or when we first discussed the idea, or even when I first arrived, before I had started to cook.  I was clear about my desire to meet her needs in creating the meal from the start, but when I expressed my upset, and why I was hurt, it was seen as me being selfish and inconsiderate.  I don't even know what is going to happen with the pasta, because it is still unbaked, sitting in a fridge at my mothers; she is not going to eat it, and I didn't make it out of any desire for the dish on my part, but in an effort to be meet various demands that were thrown forward when I have tried to cook before.  It is always the same pattern, though, no matter what I try to do, where any effort I make is twisted into a reason for me to be considered the trouble-maker.  Early today, in the midst of all this, my mother commented about how she didn't think I wanted her around, but the truth is, whenever I am around her or make any effort towards showing her I care or want to include her in my life, she responds as if she wishes to be rid of me, and she has made clear to me that she refuses to entertain any notion that she is responsible or needs to change at all, even stating directly, at one point in the past that my desire to build a better relationship was a cruel attack on her belief that our relationship is fantastic.  It is not clear what I can do, but I have to figure it out.  As I have said, this is a fairly minor example compared to some of what has happened, and it does not even involve my brother, who complicates matters immensely, and with whom I have issues both connected and separate.  I know I am contributing to this in my own way, as well, that it is inevitable for me to be a part of these kinds of problems in the family dynamic, but I feel as if I am the only one who is genuinely interested in making things better, that even when they say that they want to work on healing our relationships, it is really just them wanting me to shut up and take whatever is heaped on me.