Mother
I haven't spoken with my mother for two, maybe three, years. I went out of my way to avoid her or places she might be when I was back in Milwaukee for the few months before we left. And, after thinking on it a long time, I decided that I had no reason to contact her. It was finally time to just pack it in.
There are a few things that are hard to say, and not because of any lack of belief in my own decisions, but more due to the inescapable "god, what will people think of me?"
So here goes, let me make it clear: Even if my mother is on her deathbed (I haven't heard any further details from her ex), we won't be talking. I won't be calling up My Awesome Dad to ask him to buy me a plane ticket home. I won't be cleaning up her estate. I will not be arranging a funeral. Nothing. She is a stranger to me. It's over.
I have a lot of very good reasons for divorcing myself from my mother, and none that I ever feel like enumerating again. With anyone. My entire childhood was given over to being an adult. It took all of my 20s to try and fix myself, as well as repair my relationship with her. It didn't work. My 30s were the decade I decided that it was high time to get the fuck over all of it and be healthy -- mentally and emotionally. And it was in my 30s that I discovered that every time I opened the door and let her in, she would set about smashing everything I'd worked so hard to restore, for her own satisfaction, to make herself feel better. As she does.
Do I feel guilty? Well, yes, of course I do. She trained me quite well. But then, to those who would say, "She's your mother! You're her only child! How can you be so brutal? So heartless?" I have to ask, "How could she? How far would you go to protect yourself?" I am my mother's daughter. I am what she made me.
Will I mourn her?
I've been mourning her for 30 years, since the first time she tried to kill herself.
I've been wanting a mother for just as long.
There are a few things that are hard to say, and not because of any lack of belief in my own decisions, but more due to the inescapable "god, what will people think of me?"
So here goes, let me make it clear: Even if my mother is on her deathbed (I haven't heard any further details from her ex), we won't be talking. I won't be calling up My Awesome Dad to ask him to buy me a plane ticket home. I won't be cleaning up her estate. I will not be arranging a funeral. Nothing. She is a stranger to me. It's over.
I have a lot of very good reasons for divorcing myself from my mother, and none that I ever feel like enumerating again. With anyone. My entire childhood was given over to being an adult. It took all of my 20s to try and fix myself, as well as repair my relationship with her. It didn't work. My 30s were the decade I decided that it was high time to get the fuck over all of it and be healthy -- mentally and emotionally. And it was in my 30s that I discovered that every time I opened the door and let her in, she would set about smashing everything I'd worked so hard to restore, for her own satisfaction, to make herself feel better. As she does.
Do I feel guilty? Well, yes, of course I do. She trained me quite well. But then, to those who would say, "She's your mother! You're her only child! How can you be so brutal? So heartless?" I have to ask, "How could she? How far would you go to protect yourself?" I am my mother's daughter. I am what she made me.
Will I mourn her?
I've been mourning her for 30 years, since the first time she tried to kill herself.
I've been wanting a mother for just as long.