Picnics are Nice

A wise person added a comment to my last post. I think it entirely meritorious, however, I think there are some larger issues at work in my case. Many of which I admit I don't understand, but I think my mother and I have already been through that phase where I realized she wasn't perfect and began to understand her as an adult and appreciate her as an adult. Whether she has ever figured out I'm an adult as well is a matter of debate in our family, and has been remarked upon by others.

I think between my mother and I there are some much, much larger disappointments going on. And fortunately for all of you, I'm not entirely free to discuss them in what is basically public.

Also, I am pretty much hardwired to assume everything is my fault. It's not always blame, per se, but it is always responsibility. I am responsible for all things that happen. It actually represents a step forward for me to say the following: I am entirely responsible for how I react to my mother, but I hereby cannot be responsible for how my mother reacts to life, or how she treats me.

So the post instantly made me regress to feeling as if all the anger, disappointment and conflict I'm having with my mother stems from my inability to appreciate her, to treat her as herself instead of what I want her to be.

I repudiate this suggestion.

On to something else:

Yesterday, my husband took me on a picnic. We went out by the lakefront and ate lots of yummy things and waved the gnats away and generally had a very fun time. And my wise husband said, "I bet we know lots of people who would never believe that we live in a city and just had that experience. Yes, we sat outside in nature where we couldn't hear cars and had a wonderful picnic and no one talked to us and we were perfectly safe. And we know lots of people who would never believe you could experience that in a city."

Interesting. We were safe, by the way, due to four incredibly savvy police on bikes. I prefer mounted policemen, myself, but I do like to see the cops on bikes.

Along the same lines, I had trouble convincing the woman cutting my hair on Monday that biking to work would be a safe and easy alternative to driving her SUV down to work every day and having to park it. A lone woman who doesn't have to haul anything at all drives an SUV to work every day. She also clearly didn't believe that biking would be faster than driving, which it could easily be, depending on exactly where she lives. My commute in the mornings is 15 minutes longer if I take the TRAIN, and the train doesn't have to deal with traffic. The bus probably takes an extra hour.

I sort of hate when it rains for that reason - I'm always late to work.