So Empty Ellie (my mom) and my dad are visiting for a week. At this point, they come twice a year for a week. That is the full amount that I see them. Which is great. At this point (4 days into their visit), I'm thinking that never might be even better, but hey. I was actually looking forward to this visit at the beginning because...I am insane? I still have a hard time with the reality that Empty Ellie is a mentally ill, boundary pushing asshole who is more exhausting than pleasant to be around?

Empty Ellie still thinks it's funny to try to stomp my boundaries, and when I push back, say shit like "someone needs her ass beat". Yeah, it's always funny when someone who used to hit me as a child until I fell down makes a comment about how I could use an ass beating (my response at the time was "I'm bigger than you, and anything that hits me gets bitten off"). Then I went and showered and sat in the showering thinking about what an enormous fucking cunt she is.

Last night, my cousin called. My cousin is kind of Empty Ellie's GC. My cousin can never do wrong. Or, when she does so wrong, it's met with compassion, always. My cousin is an ok person. She's not amazing. She's not terrible either. Her parents are total shit, she has some pretty severe health problems, and she's an alcoholic (kind of working on getting it under control. Goes to AA, but it still kinda in denial, but also kind of working on it). She has three kids, and she loves them, and my experience of her as a parent (except for the alcoholism, which she hides pretty well. She's a functional alcoholic) is that she is actually a pretty good parent, does great boundary setting, really loves her kids and encourages them to be themselves (she's way better a parent than their dad is, that's for damn sure).

But anyways, Cousin calls Empty Ellie because she accidentally talked to her dad on the phone (her mom is a piece of shit, but her dad was an even bigger piece of shit), and her dad was an even shittier piece of shit to her than normal. Empty Ellie is amazing to my cousin about this. I mean, she's super supportive, all about my cousin having the right to hang up on her dad when he's being an asshole, telling her she's doing the right thing by telling her dad off. It's just incredibly sad, because when she sees toxic behavior in others, even in parent/child relationships, she calls it pretty accurately and reacts in a really supportive manner, but it was her & me, she's be pushing to walk all the fuck over my boundaries.

It is not lost on me that my cousin is in a worse place in life than I am, and that she kind of idolizes Empty Ellie, so Empty Ellie gets the kind of subordinate, adoring mother/child relationship with my cousin that she'll never have with me, because she was an abusive cunt to me and therefor doesn't get any adoration, and only gets respect when she behaves in a way that is worthy of respect.

As I was in the shower the other night, I was thinking how much easier my life will be when Empty Ellie is dead. The only real guilt I feel over that is that I generally feel guilty when I think I'll be happier when someone (anyone) is dead. It feels like a shitty thing to think, especially about your own mother. But when she's dead I won't have her hoarded fucking house hanging over my head anymore, as something to worry about. I won't have this exhausting fucking relationship to deal with, where she does behave a great deal of the time, but does also push boundaries and starts to act like a fucking cunt if she thinks she can get away with it. It's so much easier when she's not here. I can ignore her and forget about her for days (sometimes weeks) at a time.

If there's one thing that Empty Ellie has taught me that's really useful, it's that I'm so very right to completely cut any other people with toxic behaviors out of my life immediately. It's not worth the energy needed to maintain good boundaries against those people who are hell bent on eroding those boundaries away. I just have this single, old, shitty women to deal with, and that's more than enough. It will be a relief when it's over.