Living a miserable life

for years now I have fought an ideological battle with my mother and am yet to score a point.Clinging like a limpet to petty differences,so called slights and imagined grievances are my mothers forte.She holds long standing grudges and cant go beyond them to even forgive or forget.Yes she will never remember the good things of life ,the happy moments,the joys.For her its always been about negatives.Its a long and loosing psychological battle that leaves me drained.I wonder why I even bother but to see such negativity irks me.I cant imagine being 83 and not remembering a single good thing in life.She keeps count of all the good things she has done for others and then laments that nothing good came to her.Never mind that she lives in happiness and in a stress free environment while many people of her age we know are in old age homes and forgotten by their children.They learn to accept but my mother hates it when I come up with alternatives.She knows that I have a point but is too proud to accept it.Comparisons have been another great asset in her life.From the time i was a child she told me how every other child was better than me in every way.Not once did I receive praise for anything.Till today my mother will lament the fact that she doesn't have a son to look after her (never mind that most sons we know have no time for their mothers).She has one set of rules for men and another for women.My mother will be happy to see all woman covered from heat to toe and sitting at home.She would like every young woman who has lost a husband to moan in self pity and shut themselves up.She has no sympathy for the brave and the ones who get on with life.Its a sad commentary on the life of a woman who has so much going for her.Everything is about her and her life.All comparisons will come back to how good she has been and how miserable her life has been.I wonder is this what keeps her going.Will positive emotions kill her because its all so alien a concept for someone whose way of life is to wallow in self pity.To live in the past is my mothers greatest virtue (at least  according to her).Everyday I battle with this attitude.I have made small headway in the many years that I have lived with her.My only course of action thank god is to be everything that she is not.To see life as it is with all its faults,to enjoy the moments,the share the sorrow,to escape into fantasy if need be but for the life of me I refuse to hold on to grudges,to constantly tell myself I am not good enough.Facts have no meaning for my mother,its all about conditioning of an extreme kind.Its sad to see people waste their lives to see them spend all energy of being miserable.Will the god who provides ever forgive?I wonder and while I still have life I will use every weapon to fight this attitude.Some day somewhere I hope to see results.