I don't know how to live with this.

So here I sit, crying. Sitting in the room that used to be mine, next to the big wet stain where all my tears were rolling off my face onto the quilt before I sat up, composed myself, went to go get dinner, and then wound up coming back here to cry some more. This time with typing.

Why? My mother.

Does she every have anything nice to say? She spent the vast majority of the time I was eating my salad telling me off about using the ATM, rather than cashing travellers checks.

This is what she does. She goes on and on about my flaws, my mistakes, tries to get me to me say them in my own words, tells me what to do, and how to do it, critizes me for any mistake I make, or even the things that are not mistakes. Things like not drinking the apple/peach/passion fruit drink that was sitting on the ground, buried under some papers. How was I supposed to know she was saving that for going to Pinion Pines?

We disagreed about making food. I want to make my own food. It's simpler, and I don't have to interact with mother. She said I could, but not this time, because she had already cooked the rice (which, on reflection, doesn't matter at all). So I plunged my hands into a dead chicken and ripped off all the flesh I could, putting it into a small dish. (An amount that wasn't enough to satisfy her, apparently.) So I can eat on my own. In fact, we have agreed that it is the default.

Caveat: Talking with her after the juice incident, I am apparently supposed to ask her permission for which foods I can use to make food. For every item. How am I supposed to make my meals like that? Wait until she is around, and bring her over to the fridge and ask her about all the items in the fridge, hoping that there is enough food in the fridge that she does not have plans for so I can make my meal? This would be easier if I could buy my own food, and put it in my own fridge, but I am making dinner off of the family stockpile, like mother would, except she knows what food can be used, and I don't. This is going to be fun like nails.

But back to the criticism. She constantly does it. Constantly, constantly, constantly. Towards me, towards the kiddos, etc. Telling people what that what they are doing is "unacceptable" or telling them what to do, telling them how to do things.

Freedom: Freedom needs sovereignty. It really does. If I am not the sovereign controller of my own actions, then I cannot excercise my freedom. Putting it into practice, I'm sitting around, constantly on call. I'm glad that things have been segregated into work days and non-work days, but she seems to believe that her plans, created with no imput from other parties, override whatever other people want to do, or are doing. Dad doesn't even know what the plans are, he just takes his instructions, and does them, completely engulfed in her choices. I get dragged along as well - I spent from noon onwards yesterday simply in the car, following her around, because she decided I needed to go to the Honk rehearsal, in a somewhat revisionist version of policy. I think she wanted me under her thumb to supervise.

Honk: Originally, she was trying to contact Ammi and Danny, and I could go hang with them during the Honk rehearsal. They live in the area, three miles from the rehearsal spot. After my dental appointment, she decided that I was going along with her to pick up Kerria, bring Kerria to Speech, bring Kerria to her playdate thing in the park, and bring Kerria to the rehearsal. Golden - I expressed my belief that I was completely superfluous in all of those things - I had no role in any of it. She told me that she thought I should go to the Honk rehearsal. This made little sense, but.

Blargh, have to get ready to go to Pinion Pines. Microwave food, go. Hell, I know I'll be waiting.