This weekend the universe seemed to be going all out to attract my attention.
To give you some context, hubby and I were on our way to Date Night! I booked and planned it at the end of December. One of my goals for this year is that we have a night away every month. A chance for us to park up our various hats; Parent, Child (yes, we are still someone’s kid) Employee. It’s good to have something to look forward to, especially if that something involves your dear other half, and to simply be yourselves.
To ensure we were not disturbed (and yes I am aware of the off button on the phone) each of us decided to call our respective mothers en route. I call this type of call a pre-emptive strike. Calling before our time away means that, barring a major emergency, there is no need for them to call up during our night away.
The two calls could not have been more different. Hubby’s mother was so excited to hear about our plans, exchanging news from her side of things, signing off by wishing us a fun time. We felt buoyed up by her enthusiasm and outpouring of love.
My mother, in stark contrast, could not have been less interested if she’d tried. Full of doom and gloom and monosyllabic responses when I tried to engage her in conversation. Believe me, I tried every open question I could think of. Completely ignoring every attempt at a pleasant conversation, she talked over the top of me until I gave up. Her main mission seemed to be to deliver as much negative news about who’d died this week, how rubbish the local government are with building maintenance, etc. Wow! Thanks for bringing down the energy mum. Eventually I managed to end the call pleasantly (or so I thought) by wishing her a fun weekend. Bad move. Apparently fun does not exist anymore, foolish child. This sullen diatribe lasted another 5 minutes before I stopped the call out of sheer exasperation.
It took me an hour to recover my own equilibrium. Hubby looked shocked as he asked me if this was a typical example of a phone call with my mum.
“Blimey! She can vacuum the joy out of a room in 5 seconds!”
“Why does she feel the need to make you feel bad every time you call her? No wonder you limit it to twice a week.”
Fortunately I bounced back, particularly when a lovely pub hove into view just in time for lunch.
Now here’s the bit where I get a big “Hello” moment. While hubby is ordering lunch and drinks I took the opportunity to catch up on emails that had landed in my inbox, waiting for me to find the time to open and read them – an eNewsletter from Dr Northrup, with the subject heading “Strategies to avoid energy vampires”.
Well buggrit! If only I’d read it before my draining encounter with mum!
And if that wasn’t a big enough “Hello”, another one popped up in WordPress in the shape of a post from MakeItUltraPsychology
I hear you, universe. This will make for an interesting visit with my own psychologist this week.
Did the call affect the date night? Not at all. In fact, we’ve already booked the next two months nights 😉 I just won’t be calling mum on the way there! Lesson learned.
Happy Monday everyone xxx
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