Some chapter, somewhere in the book that I have yet to write.
The paradoxical dichotomy with which me and my sisters grew up in was entirely thanks to our mother.
Now, granted, you might think that all girls have issues with their mothers, but this is something spectacularly different.
Before you dismiss my assement, keep reading.
Or don't. I feel I should warn you before you continue that the world which you are about to discover is full of unsavory characters, vile acts, and reprehensible decisions. But I will do my best to gloss over the worst bits - or maybe I won't. Morbid curiousity has always gotten the better of me so I feel no reason to 'spare' anyone from their own.
Mother grew up a genteel Southern lady in a typical genteel Southern home. That is to say, her father was a philandering alcoholic doctor, her mother ran herself ragged being an 'independent' woman while at the same time maintaining the facade of a happy family, and my mother and her siblings were raised by an elderly black woman named Ms. Estell.
The philandering doctor was also
No, there will be plenty of time to discuss what my grandfather was and wasn't later on. This chapter is about my mother, her neurosis, and the delightfully (and I do write that with the utmost facisciousness) confused way in which she ran her household.
Mother was always an incredibly self-centered person, while at the same time being a generous, considerate and loving woman.
It seems another interjection is necessary at this point, and for that I do apologize.
Everything I have to say about my mother might lead you to believe that I do not love or respect her. Quite the contrary. It took me years to reconcile the woman I loved with the woman who drove me mad, and as such I do realize her various flaws and quirks, as hard as they are to describe.
She is my hero, my rock, and in many ways my role model. She is also a human being, with a story and with the baggage that comes from a life lived to a very full extent.
As an adult, a full grown woman with a loving husband, sucessful daughters (for the most part and so far), a thriving business and a commendable profession, my mother still viewed herself as an unsatisfactory human being (an affliction that would not be spared her daughters - we all seemed to fall into the classic over-achiever mode of life and all had our own various neurotic ticks).
She has never viewed herself as good enough, or smart enough, or beautiful enough.
This view wasn't helped by the ridiculous standards of American beauty, but I don't believe her psychological shortcomings were spawned from a mere over-exposure to capricious American culture.
I did say I was going to discuss my grandfather in a different section, but some mention of him is required here.