Crystallizing
I am still in shock about what happened on Saturday. I am mortified that I am related to someone who is so callous. I can not understand how I ended with the values I have, when she is the way she is. It is just beyond my comprehension how someone like that can be my mother.
But it helps to see it so clearly. It feels like my understanding of how awful she is has just crystallized.
Sometimes, when she's being cruel to me, I can't see it. I can't see that it's not somehow my fault.
But when she does something like that to someone else, someone I care about, suddenly it's crystal clear.
I am glad that it got so clear, though I am sorry she is what she is.
I sent her the email I've been composing for the last two days, telling her that she is not welcome in my home. I am sure I will get some kind of snide response.
My struggle now will be to avoid being cut off from the entire rest of my family, because that is how she operates. There will be teary calls from my grandmother telling me to apologize. My cousins and uncles will be told that she's not speaking to me because I hang out with pierced freaks who are rude to her, or some such rot.
It will be an uphill battle for me because she has so effectively gotten in the middle of so many of my relationships with so many members of my family, that it is *hard* for me to reach out to them and stay in contact. I've had years of being told "So and so is angry at you for this or that. So and so really can't deal with your transition, so you shouldn't visit them anymore... it will just make them uncomfortable. So and so
has said this or that about you. Don't invite your uncle's family to dinner at your house...they'll never drive all the way to your house to see you...it's easier for them to just stay at mine, they don't really want to see you that much." (They did accept my invitation to dinner, though, without hesitation.)
I don't want to lose all of my family over her. And God knows they know what she's like. I have to keep reminding myself of that, of how many times my cousins have told me they think it's a miracle I came out okay, given what I came from.
But it helps to see it so clearly. It feels like my understanding of how awful she is has just crystallized.
Sometimes, when she's being cruel to me, I can't see it. I can't see that it's not somehow my fault.
But when she does something like that to someone else, someone I care about, suddenly it's crystal clear.
I am glad that it got so clear, though I am sorry she is what she is.
I sent her the email I've been composing for the last two days, telling her that she is not welcome in my home. I am sure I will get some kind of snide response.
My struggle now will be to avoid being cut off from the entire rest of my family, because that is how she operates. There will be teary calls from my grandmother telling me to apologize. My cousins and uncles will be told that she's not speaking to me because I hang out with pierced freaks who are rude to her, or some such rot.
It will be an uphill battle for me because she has so effectively gotten in the middle of so many of my relationships with so many members of my family, that it is *hard* for me to reach out to them and stay in contact. I've had years of being told "So and so is angry at you for this or that. So and so really can't deal with your transition, so you shouldn't visit them anymore... it will just make them uncomfortable. So and so
has said this or that about you. Don't invite your uncle's family to dinner at your house...they'll never drive all the way to your house to see you...it's easier for them to just stay at mine, they don't really want to see you that much." (They did accept my invitation to dinner, though, without hesitation.)
I don't want to lose all of my family over her. And God knows they know what she's like. I have to keep reminding myself of that, of how many times my cousins have told me they think it's a miracle I came out okay, given what I came from.