I Told Mom ‘I Don’t Care'

Recently, when Mom asks me to help make a decision, my response has been “I don’t care.” The first few times I did this, she was offended. She thought it meant I didn’t care about her.

So I sat her down and explained.

“It doesn’t mean I don’t care about you,” I told her. “It means that whatever decision you make will be OK with me.”

It took several repititions for her to actually get it,

When I ordered toilet paper, I put all of it in her bathroom because it’s closer to the front door and when I ran out of TP in my bathroom I could just swipe a few rolls from hers.

In the past, we’ve actually had discussions about the division of TP. That seems a waste of time.

Or a few days ago, when she was upset because my boyfriend bought me treats while I was at Texas Oncology. I pointed out to her that she had been taken shopping by a friend the prior weekend and the reason I got the nice treats was that I sat getting an infusion for almost five hours!

“Mom, if you wanted a special dessert, why didn’t you buy it for yourself while you were out shopping?”

She seemed fixated on the dessert, so I asked her — did she want me to oder her something? And she asked for french fries!

“Would that be OK?” she asked.

“Sure, Mom. I don’t care what you order. You should get what you want and trust that it will be OK with me unless I object.”

Now she finally gets it.

I don’t have the mental or emotional energy these days to think about these small things that really don’t matter.

What matters to me?

Mom is healthy (at least on the current continuum)
I am healthy (given that I have cancer)
Mom is happy
I am happy
My boyfriend is OK and so are his parents
My pets are healthy and happy
My friends that are like family are doing OK (I check on them at least once a week)
My house has not been invaded by rodents, scorpions, snakes, or feral dogs; it’s amazing how my cat helps with this
A tornado has not taken me to some mythical place (though actually that might be fun)

Seriously, though, as long as the people I love (including myself) are doing OK and I still have working AC during a Texas summer, I don’t care much about anything else.

Once I explained this to Mom and she got it — she realized that when I say “I don’t care” that actually empowers her. It means that she gets to make the decision if she wants to.

What if neither of us make a decision? Well, that won’t happen.

At some point one of us will see that something needs to be done, and do it. Without needing to talk about it. Which is really where I want to be. I don’t want to talk about a lot of stuff these days.

I like calling my uncle and discussing metaphysics with him since we’ve been doing that since I was 12. I like calling my Uncle in Newton and talking politics with him since he used to talk that stuff with my Dad and will still talk it with me. He’s actually not related to me but I call him Uncle because he was Dad’s best friend.

I call my friend Sam and we make bad buns or talk geeky electronics stuff. Or I do a group chat with my other best friends and we royally rip at each other but also emotionally support each other.

I have close friends I touch base with to discuss books we’re reading and books we’re writing. Or recipes we want to try. Or projects we want to do.

In other words… cancer has not taken away my life. But the magic phrase that helped to keep me in control — “I don’t care”. It works for me.

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This post was previously published on Shefali O’Hara’s blog.

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