My mother sent me a bitchy email last Friday. I would like to dissect the hell out of it, starting with “Happy Friday”, but I will refrain.
Then I sent one back to her. Not quite as bitchy as hers but definitely upset (you can fill in all but one of the black spots below with Thing #1).
There is some back story here that you don’t know, but I think this pretty much makes sense without any more context.
She called me back that evening at 6:30 my time. I refused to answer it, because I was still on my commute home, and I had definitely NOT cooled down yet.
She left a message.
If you can’t tell, I really don’t like my mother. Not that it matters, but no one else does either (there’s a blog-troll who lurks around here and she reminds me of my mother)
After I had a more sufficient amount of time to cool off, I left her a voicemail early Sunday afternoon. I wrote it all down before I called her, and I did not deviate from the words I wrote. I said:
I decided to leave you a message today instead of calling you directly because I know that Sunday can be a busy day for you and I didn’t want to interrupt something that you already have going on. Also, I need to tell you that I am still very upset with you about Friday and I don’t think that I am ready to have a conversation with you that is not emotionally charged. Communication with you is very challenging for me because it brings up a lot of past emotions that I would rather leave in the past. But, if you still feel the need to talk to me about this, I will be available this afternoon to take your call.
About 40 minutes later, she called me back. She started off the conversation by apologizing profusely and told me that she was really frustrated with my daughter and it was wrong for her to take those feelings of anger out on me.
Then she said, “Except Thing #1 won’t return my phone calls or talk to me.” (Gee, Mom. I wonder why that is…)
My mother and I have never had a relationship. I will take half of the blame, but she won’t take any. We have just recently been able to act more like mother and daughter in a civil-type way, but it’s very, very difficult and I only do it for HER sake.
Near the end of the conversation, my mom said/asked, “I’ve taken my part and apologized for saying hateful things in the heat of the moment, don’t you regret some of the things you said to me?”
My response was, “No, Mom. I thought really hard about what I was going to say to you both in my email Friday and today while we’ve been talking. I have tried not to be accusatory and I was very honest with you about my feelings.”
“Well, then, I guess there’s nothing left to say.”
“I guess not. Have a good afternoon, Mom.”
“I love you.”
“I love you, too.”
(I hate saying those words when I don’t feel them. It makes them completely meaningless.)
Smitten with Him 
Talk to me :-)