This past year, my mother for the first time in my entire twenty something odd years of life, is trying to be my mother. Trying really hard to be my mother. And it freaks me out. It makes me angry and uncomfortable sometimes. She calls me at least once a week to check on me and she buys me random gifts like socks, sneakers and winter boots. Which any other normal child would be used to and wouldn't think twice about. But not me. I am not used to being taken care of. I always been the one to look after myself and make sure that I have everything that I need to survive, ever since the age of eleven. You see when my mother was pregnant with me, she was abusing drugs. When she gave birth to me she still was on drugs, so she was not the best fit parent. There was some sort of crazy custody battle between my grandmother (my mom's mom) and my mother. My grandmother "won". I remember these custody battles for years, because after I was born my mother had two more children in the span of five years. My grandmother had all three. I remember when my mother would visit us sometimes a few holidays here, couple of birthdays there and once or twice randomly in the middle. I called my grandmother "mommy". But when I turned eleven, something started happening to grandmother. She got really sick. And not the sick where you go take aspirin and go to bed early one night, wake up the next morning and you all better. But the kind of sick where each day there is new symptom and the old symptoms are getting worse. It got so bad that my "mommy" could not stand up anymore, she had headaches all the time, she was always dizzy and she could not eat. I had to take my 8 year old brother and 5 year old sister to school each day and pick them up. I had to clean and cook. I was the one who had to bathe my "mommy" and lift her to go to the bathroom because she could not stand on her. I did not go to school that year. And my mommy did not call 911 for a year in fear of what would happen to "us" the kids of anything happened to her because there was no one to take care of us. And my real mother was not there for this. One day, when my mommy forced me to go to school and take my city wide tests, I came back and my real mother was there. My mommy called her to come over, so she would be there when we came from school while my mommy was rushed to the hospital. My mommy was diagnosed with a tumor on her brain and it was found to be cancer. A year and half after that she died and I was forced to live with my aunt.
Nothing was the same after that. My aunt for many treated my sibling and I "different" from all the children in the family. I don't think that she did it purposely, but it hurt. And I basically took care of myself for all these years. And for many years, I hated and blamed my mother for all of the pain I suffered, the pain my siblings suffered and for my mommy not being alive. I have come to accept everything that has, happened in my life and I no longer hate my mother. BUT......
But I have been living a certain way for a really long time, how can I can change now? My mother wants me to be her baby girl, her daughter when I am an adult stranger. We got into a fight a couple of weeks ago and she was crying on the phone to me, telling me that I am cold to her. All I could say to her, this is who I am and I don't know what you want me to do. What I wanted to say to her was this is who I am and this is because of you. But I couldn't. I have seen her cry because of the guilt. I remember when I was about 15 or 16 she came in drunk and she asked me if I loved her and I told her that I didn't know. And that was the truth at that time. I didn't know if I loved her because I didn't know her to love her. I didn't want to make her cry again. I don't get pleasure from making her feel guilty. I actually feel guilty every time, I see the pain and guilt in her eyes. Because each time she looks at me she reminded of it.
SO....
What do I do?
Do I try to change me?
or..
Do I stay the same but hurt her as a result of that?
DAMN.....
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1 comment:
hmmm
okay, so, not to compare my situation to yours, but i know EXACTLY what youre going through... my father was totally MIA throughout my childhood and didnt really start giving a shit until i was a senior in high school. he had some kind of mid-life crisis and decided he wanted to be closer to his eldest child. and i had to tell him, point-blank, that i wasnt a little girl anymore. that those years were gone, and he made a choice a long time ago, to remarry and focus all of his attention onto his new family. i told him i wasnt angry or hurt anymore, that i had moved on and that he should do the same. that we could be friends but we would never have the kind of 'father-daughter' connection that he shared with his other children and wanted to share with me, because he simply WASNT THERE. thats not anybody's fault. and in your case, its not anybody's fault either. your mother made a choice and you reacted. she cant go back and change it, and neither can you, and her feeling guilty doesnt change the years of neglect on her end or hurt feelings on yours. tell her to let it go and try to be your friend, woman to woman, not parent to child because, for all intents and purposes, youre NOT her child. youre not a little girl anymore, and you have to grow up in her eyes. thats not 'mean' or 'cold' or anything else that she would have you believe. thats YOU and you dont have to change that. if she cant take it, then maybe she just cant take you as you are. and thats not your fault either.
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