Elizabeth

So the last few times that I spent time with my mother…

Wait, no. Let me back up.

I don't remember exactly when this was, I want to say December, but I finally dredged up the nerve to tell my mother that I don't always enjoy spending time with her, that she makes me feel small and criticized and unhappy, and she was great, she said she didn't want me to feel that way and asked what she could do and she's been trying and that means so much. And this time, when she came to visit my stepdad, she told me she's made a resolution not to interrupt me when I'm talking, which is something I've complained about for years and it's a really good idea considering that I was saying I feel like she takes up all the room in the conversation. And brunch yesterday was pleasant and spontaneous dinner tonight was pleasant, and both times when I was on the subway platform after, I — you know how some kinds of jellyfish don't locomote independently, they just go where the water currents take them? I felt sad, surrounded by sad, but like the sadness wasn't mine, I'd just ended up in a sad current, and I'd be in the current until I wasn't, and there wasn't anything to be done about it and nothing had caused it. Which ... is probably not true. But lookit me feeling feelings! (Ugh.)