coming to terms - part 1

For what feels like forever, I've been trying to resolve the anger and bitterness leftover from my childhood. This has proven quite difficult, in that most of the people with whom I need to clear the air are dead or completely unapproachable. This post is for me. It won't be terribly fun for anyone else to read, but its something I need to put out there, into the ether. I can't talk to my mother about it anymore, and I certainly can't "talk" to my father, so I'm posting it here. If you're not up for the read, I totally understand.

When my mother died, I was in my mid-twenties and still working through my resentment and blame. At that time, I was pathetic in my inability to be honest with her. She shared my lack of honesty. Our relationship was one of needs and fulfillment not respect or admiration. Her mothering vacillated between overbearing and neglectful depending upon the attention she received (or didn't) from l'homme du jour. Nine times out of 10 that man would be married, so you do the math.

At the end of her life, my mother had come to a certain peace about life and I so wanted to let go of my anger and share it with her. Unfortunately, I couldn't see past that anger long enough to work things out with her. I often imagine that things would be so very different, if I'd had my son while she was still alive. There were so many things that I just didn't see or understand until I had my baby. Raising children takes nothing short of a heroic effort when you retain so much damage from your own childhood. How do you fill someone else's needs when yours are still waiting to be filled?

Some mamas strive to become more selfless in what seems to me, an effort to put their past-hurts behind them. But, I have to wonder if it's not simply the emotional equivalent to "walking off" a hemorrhage.

I know that compared to my mother's childhood, my own was like a breath of springtime. She had a very hard life, indeed. Complete with Cruel, Secretive, Controlling, Abusive, Alcoholic, Big-C-Crazy parents, a million siblings, and a chronic illness that turned her into the family scape-goat. Not to mention the wads of cash that subsequently found themselves squandered and lost and saw their 9-person family move from a HUGE expanse of a home complete with servants and their quarters, into a tiny, 3-bedroom, 1-bath house in a rotten part of town.

My grandfather shared a special bond with my mother because they both had diabetes, and my mother was the first child he had with my grandmother. Unfortunately, grandmom couldn't stand to see him spend any affection on anyone but herself. Don't get me wrong... My grandfather was pretty awful in his own right, just in different ways. In fact, just to carry the title as my grandfather's "favorite", my mother withstood cruel and unusual punishment from him, to say the least. But, this special moniker also meant that my mom spent much of her life fending off jealous resentments cast by her own mother as well as her siblings.

My life didn't even come close to the kind of pain that she experienced, but at times, it could still be difficult. Not difficult in the "where is my next meal coming from" kind of way, or the "my mother's an addict" kind of way, but not particularly happy, either.

I spent my childhood being told that when I behaved inappropriately, it was because I was just like my father, but I should always remember, in EVERYTHING I do, that I am a "reflection" of my mother (the hairdresser) and that people will judge her by the way I lived my life and the way I looked and the grades I got in school and the people I hung out with and... and... and... you get the idea. Consequently, nothing I ever did was good enough. So, what does any reasonably intelligent, resentful, depressed, dejected teen do? Stop trying. Reverse engines. Stop doing her hair and makeup. Generally, screw up to the best of her ability. And, so, I did.

I didn't really hurt anyone but myself, of course. I suppose it was also a cry for attention, but she was too busy trying to find "a father's love" in boyfriend after boyfriend after married boyfriend. Oh, she reacted, ok... Just not appropriately. I was grounded through 80% of high school. It just spurred me on, further. We never really moved past the battle of wills. Its sad, really. Especially when you consider how much of my time is spent wondering if/hoping that she'd be proud of me, now.

I was angry that I couldn't just take my own credit for my own accomplishments. Everything always came back to being a reflection of her. I couldn't develop my own identity. I was always running, (towards or away, I still don't know) always fighting but never winning. I desperately wanted to grasp just a thread of her grace and her beauty and make it mine, yet I couldn't stand painting my face or my finger nails, in an attempt to impress her. I asked her advice, but never EVER took it. I loved her and hated her, craved her attention and pushed her away. I missed out on so many things that she could have taught me, but retained so many others that I wish she hadn't.

today, I am still a steaming pile of contradictions. the more things change, the more they stay the same. I think I'll stop here and write more later. I'm tired. In more ways than one.