I have lots of old tapes that play in my head, but one has been recurring a lot lately. I try to block them out, and its not always as easy as that sounds. This is where I hope to cut off those tapes.....just a bit outside of what I have been writing about since starting my blog. This is one of the reasons I started it too.....get things off my chest, and hopefully move on.
My Mother is gone now, and sadly she hoped the legacy of negativity would carry on long after she was gone. To a certain extent, she was right. It did stay. Its lingered, and penetrated so much of my life.
She lived in a world of negativity. That gray cloud always followed her world, and how her life turned out was the fault of all the people who touched her life. She didn't find any joy in being a mother and grandmother, family, and friendships. She could't get a long with women if her life depended on it, and this trashed her view of workplaces and experiences.
She blamed my father mostly. He was controlling, he made the choices, we loved him more, etc. He might have been two out of the three. But I really feel that at the beginning of their marriage, she let my father be in charge, and it was a role he didn't have an easy time of letting go when she wanted to stretch her wings. The solution, was divorce.
It was years after the divorce, she was still blaming him for things that had happened years and years before. She couldn't just let it all go, and move on. He was blamed for her being fired from a job, or losing a friendship, and he was blamed because Sarah enjoyed his company more than hers. In fact, until the day she died, she blamed my dad for everything. Nothing that happened to her could have possibly been her own fault.
I used to think this negativity was born after my sister died, but as the years went on, it became more clear to me that this is exactly the way she'd been my entire life. It became evident when I went to care for her most of 2006.
It wasn't that she didn't appreciate my being there. I looked at this as an opportunity to prove to my mother that I did love her, and her well being meant a lot to me.
I was there to cook and clean, and run errands for her since she couldn't drive herself. I did laundry, helped her bath, and advocated for her with her doctor. I did everything I could possibly do to make her comfortable and feel loved. It had been many years since I'd lived with her, and it didn't take long to realize why my mother lived alone most of her life. No one could live with her.
She kept secrets from me, and lied every chance she got. She told me what she wanted me to know, and I learned that this was the way she'd been for a very long time. I was there to serve, and I kept telling myself that she needed me, and nothing else mattered.
I was there for four months, and I began to really miss my husband, kids, dogs and home. She resented this. I told her it was time to make some decisions, because I couldn't stay forever. She grew angry and even more withdrawn. It was if I was betraying her.
During the last month I was there, we had some heated discussions or arguments, and so many things that I'd suspected came of them. I knew that once I left, I woudn't return and probably never see her again.
In the middle of one discussion, I asked her why she never loved or liked me. She told me that when I was two, my Dad threated to take me away during a fight. It was at that time, she emotionally checked out of any sort of mother/daughter relationship with me. Although in her defense, I have to say I think she tried over the years, but couldn't. It made so much sense to me when my sister was born, and she told me "now I have a baby and your father has you." Years later, when my sister died, she told me "I lost my child, and I'm stuck with you." It all made sense. It hurt like hell, but the truth set me free from feeling that it was something I had done.
She resented the grief I felt when my father died, and ultimately this is the tape that plays the most. I miss my dad so much, and on those days that I miss him more than others, I hear her saying I loved him more and that she knew I wouldn't miss her when she was gone. If only she knew the truth. I do miss my dad, but I know with all my heart he loved me, and was as proud as any parent could be other their child. I do miss her in spite of the hell she put me through most of my life. I can't say that I miss her to the depths that I miss my dad, since you can't really miss something that you never had. I feel more guilty than anything else that I don't miss her the way I miss my dad. It was as if she wrote this part of history long before it happened. She set me up to fail her. And I hate it.
The tapes don't play as long as they did before, but every now and then I hear my mother say how worthless I am, that I'm lazy and fat, and that I have always been a disappointment to her. I try to look around at what I've accomplished in my life, and reality is much better than her bitterness. I have a nice home, a good husband, my girls are everything to me, I have people who love me and want to be in my life, I work hard and I am appreciated at work, and I like me. That must piss her off to no end!!
Eventually the reruns have to go off the air, and I am going to really try to let this one go into the "lost tapes" vault forever. I have so much to be thanful for, and I have so much I should be proud of.
I will end this on a good note, and a happy thought. Sundays were my dad's favorite days in the Fall. It meant football. As I sit here on most Sundays, I honor him by doing the same thing, and I think he's sitting up there with God with his fist in the air and saying "that's my girl."
Now that's a legacy to be left with!!!
