“Your definition of me putting myself first is my not going along with whatever it is that you want me to do."
Jeannie had never heard her daughter talk like this, and she was beginning to vibrate with anger.
"So now I'm a terrible mother? That's what you're trying to say? That I made you feel bad your whole life, and that I make unhoused people sick, and that I may as well lock myself up in my room, crawl into a ball, and die?"
Jeannie had a flair for the dramatic, a flair that usually had an effect on Isabella. But not this time.
"You can do whatever you want, but I can't let you cook poisoned food for people anymore. And if you want me to be in your life, you're going to have to start respecting my boundaries."
There it was: the million-dollar word, the preeminent concept in all therapy podcasts and self-help books, and the one that Isabella heard about all the time and had never applied to herself. Only now, in this moment, did she finally understand it.”