It's been a long time since I wrote, for myself or for you. I love to use the excuse of being lazy, the truth is I haven't felt I've had anything of worth to say. The history of the world is filled with volumes of meaningless words, unfulfilled intentions, and cliched intentions. Who am I to add to it?
And yet...here I am. Writing for no other reason than to write. To put to words the thoughts that bump about my brain while I sleep-for I find myself asleep even while others would say I'm awake.
I've realized a great many things about myself over the last few months-things that are fresh and deep and things that should have healed long ago. Let me start with this:
I LOVE my life. I have a beautiful home, beautiful dogs, a man who loves me, a job, and hopes for the future. For these things I am blessed, for these things-and many more-I live my life.
As the years start to mount and I get closer to the age where I have "lived" longer than I will live, I find myself thinking of things I haven't thought of in ages. Childhood memories, rosey dipictations of times long past where life was "simple" and easy, I think fondly of my brother-whom I love-and our fights. I remember the moments-however fleeting-of when our unit actually felt and functioned as a family. I remember my mother trying to teach me how to quilt by hand in the victorian we lived in in Tennesse-I couldn't have been more than 3 or 4-with the moon shining out of the round window, the imperfections in the glass, the blisters on her fingers, her patience, my ineptitude, even the color of the scraps.
Many of you have never heard me talk of her in this way, only in sarcasim, resentment and pain-and with good reason. I always say to people who ask: "Don't you miss your mom?"
with: "How can you miss something you never had?" But the truth is, I did have a mother. I had an awesome mother. One who took pictures, who loved me and my brother, who tried to pass things on to us. My mom would've fought tooth and nail for us at one point, no matter what the reason. She was proud and kind and generous and beautiful-all the things a mom should be.
But then everything changed. She turned sour-like milk left in the sun-poisoning us and our family. She became cruel and selfish and shallow and hard and horrible. It wasn't overnight, that would've been too easy. No, this happened gradually over the course of two years, from when I was 6 until I was 8. At least that's my perception of it. I know she was always this way, at least a little bit, because of the very nature of my conception and her marriage to my father. But this is when the warmth I felt from her towards my brother and myself began to fade. She started drinking, heavily, and doing drugs and stealing money from the household and bringing strange men back to the house for-whatever reason. She tried to make it up to us, whenever she was sober enough to recall she had children, by giving us grand vacations or gifts. She even entered me into a pageant, which was popular in Georgia, bought me a grand dress and curled my hair. I became physically ill knowing this was our dinner money and some short-sighted attempt to "make things better."
My father ultimately rescued me from that life, from her. He will never know exactly to what degree he rescued me-that I can never admit to him. But surely I would have ended my own life had I stayed there, of this I am sure.
I would love to say that the poison of my mother ended there, twenty years ago, but alas I went back for more. I wanted so badly to have the type of relationship my friends had with their moms-the nosy, overbearing, always-in-your-business, wonderful relationship they complained about. But that was never to be. As a teen she manipulated me, lied to me, used me. As a young adult-she did the same. As an older adult I have learned to live without-cutting all ties to her and that family-save my brother, who I don't talk to often enough. So I say, for ease of conversation, that she's dead if people ask. Honestly, it will be a great relief when she does die-so I don't have to lie anymore.
What has all this remembering led me to? As always, it has led me to a fear-an old fear made new with insight and wisdom. If she was/is my example for motherhood, then what kind of mother will I be? Will I perpetuate her dis function? Will I make a legacy out of her abuse? For the good of humanity/society should I not procreate? I have never wanted anything consistently throughout my life aside for children. But what kind of life could I possibly provide them? Is my selfish play at a chance of immortality worth the life of a child? I just don't know.
And so I write, for no other reason than to write.
