A good old fashioned fight

Most times my tack in confrontational situations is to write a letter or just ignore it until I can discuss it in good humor or not at all. I rarely want to talk about something at the moment it bothers me. I like to examine it, figure out what bothers me, what parts of the interpersonal conflict are mine (i.e. I'm more mad at me than them), what parts are useless staying mad about because they are things that can't be changed, and then press on. I don't like emotional conversation because it's messy and rarely drills down to actual issues, it's name calling, it's walking out, it's accusatory tones, it's just not usually useful and it wasn't useful this morning when Ashley and I had it out either. But it felt good to leave her ass at home to take the bus to Virginia and I hoped she had a horrible trip because I'm evil but also because her sense of entitlement pissed me the fuck off.

No fight, even between strangers is ever just about whatever set it off. This fight was no different. We're rounding the corner on a year of occupation. She's a semi-terrible roommate (the semi an allowance for the times we enjoy in spite of ourselves). Her room is terrible, she does next to no household work. I even wash her clothes because she refuses to pay attention to where the soap goes and I don't want to buy a new washer before I go. She has never vacuumed, she's destroyed my property, disrespected my home, and daily disrespects me by not showing the simplest considerations. And though I shouldn't, I get overly emotionally involved when I see people making stupid or inefficient decisions. She makes them all the time and then argues her stupid position with conviction I wish she had for making better decisions.

The details of this fight are not important. The upshot is I left this morning to visit my Mom and she could have gone with me. She didn't and she is still on her way here. If my calculations are correct, a three hour trip has taken her over 8 hours. Time she could have spent with Mom. I never expect her to acknowledge I was right but I do wonder what she'll do next time. I'm usually pretty good about not rubbing it in. We'll see how I hold up.