Day 92

My big event of the day was driving my mom and Jimmy's mom to the airport. It seems like a simple enough task and one that shouldn't be a big deal. Well, it wasn't, not in principle, but it kind of was. I mean, I hate driving in the city. I fear hitting things. While SFO is hardly very far away, I thought I would just to dropping my mom off where Jimmy's mom was. As I navigated our way from the Marina to Chinatown, I got a tad lost and increasingly annoyed. My mom hinted that maybe it would be nice if I could just take them instead of having them bus/BART it.

What sort of self respecting child doesn't take their parents to the airport when there's no transportation or time conflict?

Originally, my mom said that she'd just say I was busy and couldn't take them to the airport. I think it embarasses her (to her friends) when she has to admit that we don't do certain things for her. So I think she prefers to make up excuses for me. Like even though I've lived at home for the past year, I'm always so gruff and curt with her when she asks for "favors." I mean, these aren't even favors. Driving her around someplace, doing something that could take a few hours, might be a bit of an inconvenience, but at the end of the day, isn't that big.

I hardly offer to go out of my way to do things and when directly asked, I sort of get all annoyed. It must hurt her, somewhere. I wonder if she wonders how she raised such ungrateful kids. And it's not about the closeness or the relationship even. It's about empathy, care, and unselfishness. Most of our other friends seem to do things for their parents, on differing levels of course, but I'm sure I'm pretty low on that spectrum.

A thankful son would say something like "Let me carry your bags while we walk to return them." Bags containing stuff she had bought for me that I didn't like and rejected nonetheless. Instead I holed up in the car because I was essentially surly and not being helpful.