Mommy Dearest...August 5, 1999

Mommy Dearest...August 5, 1999

My mother called today, for the first time in months. Indeed, the last time I spoke to her period was Father's Day. She got into a snit when I refreshed (quitely and respectfully) everyone's memory at dinner that my sister did not want anyone smoking in the house. When informed of this new rule, I clarified with Quincy that she would expect the same from our parents, but somehow, I just knew that either she would not have the constitution to follow through, or my parents would just go ahead and smoke in the house anyway. It turned out to be a bit of both, and yet again I ended up feeling like a second class citizen with respect to my family. Because I no longer tolerate such desparate regard, there has been a rift in my relationship with my mother. It is one that grows wider exponentially. It is tearing me apart, despite my best efforts in letting it not. She is, after all, my mother. No one else in this realm of existence has the power to tie me in emotional knots like she can. Part of this is learned, but I also hold firm to the idea that it is also inate.

Since I was not home when she called, she left a message for me to call her back. I am procrastinating in my struggle to organize what I need to articulate to her in a way that she may actually hear me, although I have said it all so many times already, I know no other way to express myself. I have tried every conceivable approach, getting angry, sad, frustrated, being pragmatic, but nothing seems to permeate her sense of what is fair and just, even when it is staring her right in the face.

I could not possibly go into a chronology of what makes my mother tick, and how this has affected my upbringing and our adult relationship (or lack thereof). Suffice it to say that she is a very sickly woman, and has been all her life. On top of manic depression, she has developed recurring bowel problems, and osteoporosis. Given her ails, I try to give her a tremendous amount of leeway with respect to her demeanour. Nevertheless, even before she became as ill as she is currently, she has always been a bitter, cantankerous, person who takes every opportunity to turn issue into crisis and martyr herself whether or not the situation even involves her directly. It is almost so extreme, that she would "take to her bed" from stress if I were not able to pay my own phone bill some month. We (my sister and I) are "a constant worry for" her, she says continuously. This is the same woman who told me repeatedly when I was a child that if it were not for her children, she would have left my father a long time ago. Well, my sister and I have been out of the house for well over a decade, and she is still there. I honestly believe the only purpose she feels she has in life is to perpetuate her misery. This tends to make everyone around her miserable. I had to learn how to experience joy as an adult, for neither parent had the capacity for this most essential human need themselves. All I knew was that life was supposed to be constant struggle, heartache, and misery, and that it was always someone else's fault. Never were my parents (especially my mother) able to accept responsibility for their own happiness. Little wonder I was suicidal at sixteen.

At this stage in the game, despite my mother's delcining health, I have to put up some fairly rigid boundaries when around her. I just cannot hear over and over again the same depressing mantra. It depresses me, and she is never willing to follow through with advice anyway. She just wants to spew, repeatedly, the same rhetoric: we'll (Quincy and I) "never get our lives together, I worry myself sick over you, your father is being an asshole again, I worked myself into an early grave just to give you everything you have....". And this is on the good days.

Whenever I distance myself from this a bit, or whenever I make issue with something she says or does, she gives me the silent treatment or cold shoulder for months at a time. Then, she tells everyone around her that I am refusing to talk to her, and how dare I after all she has done for me? Well, nothing she has ever done has been without a cost, especially emotionally.

A couple Christmases ago, my mother offered as early as September to purchase new winter coats for Quincy and me as a Christmas present. We could shop around, and once we found something we liked, she would give us the money for it. In early December, I found a coat that I really loved, and had been admiring off and on for a couple years. It was an oilskin leather coat. It was within a reasonable price range, and just to make sure, I called my mother and verified with her the offer, and told her the price. To save time, and in my anticipation, I purchased the coat myself, thinking I would get the money from my mother anyway. Within a couple day, Quincy found a coat, and did the same thing as I. My mother refunded Quincy's money poste-haste, with a Merry Christmas to boot. After waiting a couple weeks after Quincy was reimbursed, I called my mother to ask about the arrangement. This was my present from her, remember. I did not ask for it, and I even told her what I found and how much it was. Nevertheless, she told me, a couple days before Christmas, that until I paid her back every cent she has ever spent on me, I can forget about getting any money from her. This was so out of the blue, and completely unprovoked. Even writing about this has brought me to near tears. Talk about sabbatoge. I felt like throwing the coat away. I did eventually get the money, but she made it clear that she was only doing it out of obligation.

The emotional abuse aside, this incident also brings into focus the differential treatment my sister and I get from our mother. She comes into town every week at least once to see sis and the kids. They have coffee, donuts, chat, and sometimes mother has appointments to go to. She also makes it in for church the odd Sunday. Not once has my mother ever come over to see me when in town. I can count on one hand the number of times she has visited my house at all, and never by herself. She has not even gone so far as to call me and ask if I would like to join them for coffee while she is in town. I have tried to tell her how tremendously sad I feel as a result of this knowledge, but it falls on deaf ears it seems.

I am getting married in less than six weeks. Duing the year I have been engaged, my mother has not once said she was happy for me, not once has asked if there is anything she could do to help out with the plans. The only comment she made was that she hoped I was sure this time because she was not going to bail me out of another bad marriage. For the record, my parents offered to pay my legal fees in getting divorced. I did not ask. They did the same for my sister. However, they did not tell her the money was a loan, but they did everything short of making me sign a promissory note. But I digress. Not once has she said she was excited that her son, her "baby boy" found his true love.

Hell, I cannot even remember the last time she said she loved me.

I was optomistic, however, that things were going to be well between The Goddess and my mother. The Goddess is very gentle and kind, and I was aspiring to perhaps heal some of my wounds with my mother if she were to respond to The Goddess positively. They would talk on the phone weekly, and my mother would send her cards and letters regularly. This was very out of character for her, to communicate so much, especially with someone she did not know very long. I was thrilled beyond words, as was The Goddess. However, mother got wind that The Goddess and my sister had had a "falling out" so to speak, and now my mother will not talk to The Goddess at all. No phone calls, no letters, no "we are happy you are going to be part of the family". It makes us both incredibly sorrowful. She did not even consider asking me or The Goddess for our interpretation of the situation, as any rational person would before making such harsh judgements.

So, here I sit, delaying returning my mother's call for want of something constructive to say. I wonder what she would think, how she would feel, if it would make a difference, if I were to say I do not need a mother, but that I would love to meet my Mom.

....Blessed Be