Avoidance

I've been dodging calls from my mother. I love my mother, but she's starting to have mild memory issues, and as a result phone conversations can sometimes take a surreal or hard to follow turn, which I used to find frustrating, but which I am starting to manage better, albeit slowly. But because of this my mother is in no position to understand what IVF is like, or what it means. She's worried about me, but I don't feel up to doing the emotional labor of making her feel better. I've been focusing on taking care of myself.

Is that selfish? I can't tell. Last January she was in the city for something - I forget what - and wanted to see me. It was her birthday, and we'd planned to go out to dinner. Well of course my egg retrieval wound up being the day before, and I was a mess. She came by the apartment instead - I had to remind her the address, which was frustrating - and all I could do was lie on the couch. I ordered us in Chinese. She was clearly frustrated. And I was frustrated that she couldn't see that I desperately needed someone to be taking care of *me.* My husband was out of town, and the best I could do was take care of myself. I couldn't also do the work of making her have a nice birthday and reassuring her that I was okay. I was sad, in the selfish sad way of children, that her response to seeing me suffering on the couch was to offer to leave and not try to make me feel better. As an adult, I could recognize that she needs me to be okay so badly that she cannot quite process or accept any state of non-okayness from me anymore. But that means that our relationship, from now onward, is going to be one-sided. I will always and forever be okay, or I will lie and say that I am. I will perform what she needs me to be, as she becomes increasingly less okay.

It's only two days after transfer, and I've got some articles I want to read, and more volunteer shifts coming up for my political candidate, and otherwise I will take it easy and try to keep my elderly dog from barking for no reason. But I can't really put off calling my mother.

I just have to make sure I'm ready to pretend to be okay.