You down wit O.P.C. (Other People's Crankiness)?

I'm a little torn, but I'm getting pretty fed up with my mom. It's not her fault, really, but it's getting to the point where I don't really want to hang out with her. Every day she comes home, she's miserable. Probably a lot of people can relate to that. She hates - I mean, HATES - her job. It is the bane of her existence, her nemesis. She has to keep it because of the insurance coverage (not to mention the income), but it makes her absolutely unbearable.

Now, I understand that people get upset and have bad days and go through periods of their lives where things aren't going too well and it's really tough for them. I've been there, you've been there, we've all done it and we'll all do it again. But, even if I can't live out this mantra every single day, I have always believed it's all about attitude. It's how you perceive things - if you think it's gonna be hard, it will be hard. You've undoubtedly heard this bit from me or some other optimistic person (who you probably wanted to hit at the time) before.

I don't get this trait from my mother. I walk in her study to say hello when I'm done working out and she's crying. "What's the matter??" I ask. At first, she won't answer, but when I ask again, she says, "Nothing. I just hate my life, that's all." Okay, fine. Bad day. It's like the 238479237th bad day in a row, but whatever. Trying to be cheery, we chat a bit about my weekend, seeing my cousin, etc. Later on my dad and I are eating dinner and I ask him how his weekend was and what they did. He pauses to think, and my mom, from the other room, shouts, "My weekend SUCKED. That about sums it up!" I ignore her and say to my father, "You went out to dinner Saturday night, right?" Again Mom chimes in with, "Yeah, that was good... but the rest of it SUCKED. I worked yesterday and then helped so-and-so with her resume. So, yeah."

Of course, being a wiseass, I crack, "Wow, you guys are such rays of sunshine in my life!" But with cheery, joking undertones - I'm laughing, making light of my mother's horrible mood. Obviously she snaps. "Oh come on, we're not allowed to have a bad day once in awhile?!" I resisted the temptation to tell her about the black cloud that's been following her and let it go...

I guess the toughest part - and I have touched on this before - is when someone just outright refuses to see the bright side of ANYTHING. I ask about the weekend (I didn't even ask HER), and she sees the few hours she spent on work and the supposed chore of helping out a friend of hers, completely forgetting about the nice dinner she and my father got to enjoy courtesy of a nice Chili's giftcard provided by moi to Dad for Christmas. Plus they watched March of the Penguins, which I know she really liked, but it's Monday night and she probably has completely blocked out that she's ever enjoyed anything in her life, much less a few days ago.

It's tough because it brings ME down, too. But, it's also tough because I truly want her to be happy. I'd settle for "vaguely amused." The woman makes Eeyore look like an optimist. The problem is that I know I can't change her situation, and frankly, there's not much she can do about it, either. So her only option is to go on living in misery, or embrace the situation for what it is (temporary, even if it's long-term temporary) and find the good in it. She complains ENDLESSLY about her job, but then has all these hilarious stories of her whacked out co-workers and how she was crying she was laughing so hard at something D-- or K-- did. How do you get someone to change how they perceive things? You probably can't, not unless they want to in the first place.

So, I'm hamstrung. A lot of people just seem really unhappy lately, which is in such stark contrast to how I've been feeling. I'm certainly not content - there is a lot I would like to be different and certainly things that are frustrating - but I am also in a really great place in so many ways and I'm not going to squander that with my own bad feelings nor anyone elses. If I haven't spent much time with you, maybe it's because you're cranky a lot! (That is directed at no one in particular, just so we're clear).

Anyone wanna come hang out on my side of the world for a bit?