No solution

There's no solution for our parents. At almost 89 my mother is still a force of nature but no one can quite rain on your parade like she can. Nothing is good enough and the impetus to critique is always at the tip of the tongue. No doubt something she experienced at the hands of her own mother.

Yesterday my youngest sister texted me to ask if I was free for lunch. She would be coming with our mother to my neck of the woods since she had a house to show later in a neighboring area. I was on the hunt for my backpack purse at the other end of Montréal but made my way back on public transit to meet them by 11 30.

We joke sometimes that we all need therapy after putting up with her unrelenting energy and bizarre ways. At our mother's toilet break my sister and I relieved the tension by commenting on how difficult she is. If you don't bring her somewhere she complains but once there she will tell you how much she prefers eating at home and how her calamari don't compare to the ones in Madrid. 

I was impressed with how much more impervious to her character flaws I am these days. I give her credit for her ability to have adjusted to her transgender child which was bolstered by my years of hammering away at the subject matter so she would understand it as much as possible. 

No, we aren't going to change her now. So instead we change ourselves.