I have been totally MIA. I was very emotional last week. Drudging up all of these buried memories took a toll on my well being. Last week I couldn't bare any more. I promised to write about fashion in this blog post, but I have some other things on my mind. I will do a post about thrifting. There is a science to it & Goodwill is my favorite store as of late. More on that later.
My mom & I have a very strange dynamic, our interaction is not typical (SURPRISE, right?). When I was younger I fought for her, I enabled her, I wiped her tears & I raised her kids. She was my mom. I thought she hung the moon. I thought she was a victim of circumstance. I thought if only she had a more supportive family, if only she was nurtured more, if only she had more love then she would be okay. The truth is I will never really know. I will never know what went wrong. What went wrong inside that home? Why was she so broken? I felt so sorry for her. We were friends & I felt sorry for my friend.
As I got older she started to resent me, she hated that I was there for her kids & I knew them better than she did. She hated that her son had very little respect for her, but he never said a cross word to me. She felt I was her competition, her rival. When I sought help I realized that I could no longer enable my mom. I could not allow her to manipulate me & I could no longer tell her what she wanted to hear. The truth can be told in love, but my mom does not want to hear the truth. The truth is too much for her to bare. So, needless to say, we've had a very rocky relationship even when she is sober. We are like water & oil. I see right through her & she does not like that. I call her on the carpet & she wants someone to just feel sorry for her. She wants someone to listen about how her life has gone terribly wrong & it is always someone else's fault. There is no accountability on her part. Ever.
My mom called me tonight & we hadn't talked in some time because really it always ends badly. I do not coddle & I do not listen to excuses. You are a 54 year old adult & you need to start acting like one. Sure, you are sick. We are all sick in some way. Figure it out. Just fucking figure it out already! I know life is hard, it is hard for everyone. But, you, mom, you just make it harder on yourself. Why oh why don't you see that?
My mom is living in a hotel right now. One of her stellar relatives invited her to live with him. I'm sure he was drunk or high when he made that suggestion---I really don't know why else he would've asked. When my sibs & I heard about this we knew it was not going to end well. This relative is toxic & that is putting it really diplomatically. But sick people attract sick people so I guess they felt it was a match made in dysFUNction heaven. I couldn't have written it better. Oh my, maybe I have ESP. Her relative decided this living arrangement was not going to work out so she is now living in a hotel. She called me tonight to talk to me about my blog because she'd heard about from some naysayers (have fun naysaying because this is not about you---this is about me & my healing. I will continue to write what I want when I want <insert tongue sticking out here>, I know, I'm so mature).
My mom asked me to read one of my entries to her. The little girl inside of me, the one that still longs for my mom, was hoping something I read would strike a cord with her. The adult me knew that was a reach. I read it anyway. She listened, but she did not hear. Afterward she never, not once, said I'm sorry. I'm sorry I hurt you in those terrible ways, I'm sorry I wasn't a mom to you. The words I have longed to hear she never utters. She is always quick to point out how others have wronged her, but she cannot handle to listen how she has wronged her own children. She told me she was in that hotel & she was alone because she has no one. I spoke in a soft voice (okay, soft for me). I told her that she was in that hotel because that is what she has chosen for her life. I asked her why she thought she was 54 years old & was still making the same mistakes. She has a job & I asked her why she didn't save for an apartment. She told me she couldn't do that because she is paying $1,000 a month to live in a hotel. Then I said why didn't you save when you were living with your relative. This back & forth went on & on. She always has an answer, she always has an excuse. I told her I thought it was time for her to live in truth. I told her it was time to take accountability for her own actions. She said she was doing that. I corrected her. I told her she wasn't. I told her she is still blaming everyone else. I told her I would love to live somewhere rent free. I would love for someone to buy me 2 cars. She then argues that it was only one car my sister & brother-in-law bought her (I'm sure they would beg to differ). She gets caught up not in the point I'm trying to make, but the details that she wants me to get right. "No, Alicia, it wasn't 2 cars, it was 1." As if the one wasn't enough. That wasn't the point anyway. She kept telling me she had to go, she was done. She kept saying over & over again that her bath water was getting cold & she only called me to hear what my blog was about. I begged her to listen to what I was saying. I told her that was the least she could do. I told her I was hurt that she would not let me speak. She said she was hurt, too. I then tried to explain to her that she was the mom & that I was the daughter. That if she was hurt that she should tell a friend. I was her daughter & I needed her to listen to me. She couldn't do it, she could not listen. I was in mid sentence & she hung up on me.
I have been heart broken by my mom for more than half of my life. There is always this hope that one day she will not only listen, but that she will hear, that one day the words would resonate. Today was not the day. From time to time I choose to not take her calls because the calls are always much like the one I just described. Something always changes inside me though & I start taking her calls again. Maybe it's the fear that this call could be her last or that this time she would apologize or that this time the call would be about me. She would ask how my life was going, how my new job was, how my husband was. Today was not that day.
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