words hurt

Whenever Erica spends anytime around her mother, she becomes her mother, just a little bit. I recognize this because I saw the same thing happen as a kid when my father would spend time with his brother. It's not exactly bad behavior, just mimicking behavior. People learn how to behave by the other people around them.

The downside of course is that, like her mother, Erica will spend the next few days absent-mindedly insulting the people who love her. In her mind, it will be perfectly acceptable to say "OK, nevermind, fuck you" in a single breath and go on about her business, without another thought, as though "fuck you" is as benign a statement as "pass the salt".

Now I know that her mother does it because she's from New York, the land that civility forgot, and she mostly does it to her husband; a more standup decent guy I've never met. They've been married for a bajillion years and there's no chance that they're ever going to divorce. So I imagine they can argue the way rabid wolves do and it doesn't really affect anything. The next day, they'll still be married, still have their opinions, and will have the added benefit of having blown off some steam in each other's direction.

I'm not like that. I have different standards, and they say that "fuck you" is an insult, no matter how quickly you say it, or how softly you mutter it at me. It still hurts. And it hurts doubly that you say it so casually to the people you claim to care about. And you should know better. You should know better because you do know better. I've talked to her about this before, but that will be lost on her, because it's like I said. People learn how to behave by the other people around them.