The Gasket is Leaking

I took the vicious thoughts out of my head and I put them on paper. I sent them to her. Now I can't pretend it's all alright, which is a relief of sorts. She gets to read my ugly (albeit true) thoughts. No reneging for me, no undoing. I know this won't really change anything, except give her more ammo, but I did this for me to lance the poisonous boil in my chest that wells hot and horrible over any mention of her. Now she gets to see how truly ungrateful I really am for all the things she believes she did well.

Mixed Emotions (What Did I Expect?)

Received a reply in the mail today from Mother. Some of it seemed rather sincere, like "I'm not angry, I'm hurt. Sometimes the truth hurts." peppered with "How did my friends hurt you" and "Of course I've told stuff about you to family. Like it or not they're family, too." Oh, and and adamant denial about her fuck-buddy... "No Way!" I'm confused. She admits what I say is the truth and then either denies it or justifies it. This is worse for me to process than either being lit up or cut out. I'm being manipulated, and I'm still confused. She ended the letter by asking me to come to her sister's surprise party again and promising not to pick a fight with me. I suppose this would be for her to pretend that I've "forgiven" her.

Ha! Found it!

I’m not going to be able to make it on [date I'm not going to]. I’ve enclosed a couple of [youngest DS]’s school pics for you.

I have some things I need to address. When you and [sis] disagree about something, please don’t let me know about it. That’s between you and her.

Earlier this year when we spoke on the phone and I told you I’ve had some anxiety and depression issues, I thought we could open the lines of communication – like a fresh start. It took a lot for me to tell you these things, because I really don’t trust that you won’t tell other people, but I said it anyway. After I say these things, you tell me I can always tell you things. Then you follow up with, “What took you so long to answer the phone?” Really.

I think you are unaware of how much like your mother you sound when you say those things. They sound petulant and passive-aggressive. I know you opened your whole life to your mother and you perceive that she wasn’t that bad. I am not willing to go through the things you went through for your mother’s sake.

I know you want to have your kids in your life. I am unwilling to submit to guilt trips, and I am unwilling to give you sympathy over any falling-out you and any other member of the family have. I know any time we have disagreed over anything (like the time I was angry you visited Dad when I asked you not to), you have dragged other family members into the mix (like Aunt []). I feel you are actively seeking sympathy when you do those things.

I have made myself scarce since May 2012 because I have been trying to decide if I can let go of a lot of personal problems I have with our communications. Since I was a child, I’ve been in the habit of defending you and allowing you to treat me as your best friend, letting you tell me all about the problems you have with people you have surrounded yourself with. From [creepy asshole #1], to [fuck-buddy #1], [creepy asshole #2] and his wife and his brother[fuck buddy #2], the crazy lady who used to live behind you at your old place in [her town] who you thought stole your rings, the crazy lady who you befriended who told you she had thoughts of harming [cousin's] baby and who came to my doorstep looking for you when you were at my house (and that woman’s father, too), the mentally-challenged lady who lives down the street from you who you expect to be on the same page as you. I believe you probably had something to do with [fuck-buddy #1] kidnapping his children, and you are very lucky you were not charged as an accessory. You and Dad chose your friends without regard to the safety and well-being of your own children when we were young. You allowed your mother to say cruel things to and about me, and all you could say was that she didn’t mean to be that way. At what point are people responsible for themselves? You have the right to surround yourself with the people of your choice, but I am not party to that anymore.

Perhaps you will be angry at me for telling the truth as I see it. So be it.

[Luckily, fuck-buddies #3 & #4 didn't play any real part in this chapter.]

I Knew This All Along

Today I realized something I have stuffed for a lot of years. Back in the day, when I was a teen, we had a neighbor who was going through a divorce who my mother befriended. She believed the sun rose and set on his ass. He ended up trying to illegally abscond with his children. Luckily, he was caught (dramatically, of course) at a rest stop about 2 miles away from the town we lived in. Gunpoint, all that jazz. My mother used to babysit the kids on occasion. I remember trying to tell her that I thought this guy was molesting his daughter because of some of the weird ways she would act, and she completely dismissed me. I also told her this guy gave me the creeps over him eyeballing me when mom sent me down to play with his kids at their backyard pool when I was 14 or 15. It occurred to me today that my mother most likely had something to do with the kidnapping plan, or at the very least had knowledge of it, because he was one of her fuck-buddies while my father was out of town. I was letting my latest angry pustule come to a head, and I was writing her another letter which I thought I probably wouldn't send (just like the other letters) when I let my fingers go and typed whatever. I re-read the letter and was surprised that I put that in there. And I thought about it, and I knew it was the Truth. And I finally got off my fence and put that motherfucking letter in the mailbox.

I'm not sorry.

...Don't Hold On but Don't Let Go...

Isn't very difficult to see whyYou are the way you areDoesn't take a genius to realizeThat sometimes life is hard
It's gonna take timeBut you'll just have to waitYou're gonna be fineBut in the meantime
Come over here, ladyLet me wipe your tears awayCome a little nearer, baby'Cause you'll heal overHeal over, heal over someday
And I don't wanna hear you tell yourselfThat these feelings are in the pastYou know it doesn't mean they're off the shelfBecause pain is built to last
Everybody sails aloneOh, but we can travel side by sideEven if you failYou know that no one really minds
Come over here, ladyLet me wipe your tears awayCome a little nearer, baby'Cause you'll heal overHeal over, heal over someday
Then don't hold on but don't let goI know it's so hardYou've got to try to trust yourselfI know it's so hard, so hard, yeah
Come over here, ladyLet me wipe your tears awayCome a little nearer, baby, yeah'Cause you'll heal overHeal over, heal over someday
Yeah you're gonna heal over

- KT Tunstall

Gah! Friggin' Numbnuts.

My bullshit meter is broken. It's been abused. I know ya'll won't know the person to whom I address this, but here goes:

Hey, you. Yeah, asshat, you. I know you thought I was stupid, and I know you know better now. I know pills aren't your only habit. I know you aren't running errands out of the kindness of your heart. I know you're not telling anyone the whole truth. I've got your number, dick. I want you to know that every time I hear your goddamn name, your number comes up and it flashes red. Every dog has its day and yours is coming on. Don't underestimate your karmic load, and don't overestimate your own intelligence. Boo-yah, dawg. Now, fuck off, preferably in another state.

A Year of...What?

It's been almost a year since I started this blog. Got to thinking about it because Mother's Day is rolling around and that's when I started looking for means of support to get through the dysfunction last year.

I can only forgive NM if I don't have to see her. That's my stance now. If I don't have to see her and talk to her and put up with her bullshit, I can at least pretend to let go of the fact that I'll never get closure from her under any circumstances. I can at least not send her vicious thoughts from inside my head on a daily basis.

Every time I've seen or talked to her in the last year (which I can easily count on both hands), it's been exactly like ripping off a bandage stuck to an old, crusty wound, and making it bleed again, and then pouring rubbing alcohol on it.

Some months ago, I started telling the abbreviated story of my life. Feels like it's time for more to be added.

I got laid off from my job during the time my parents were separating for the final time. I didn't make much money, but it was the first full-time job I'd ever had, and I was doing something I liked to do, although the job was a den of hate and mismanagement. I took advantage of a misplaced worker's program our state offered, and three months later I started college full-time.

During this first semester, I felt so much better about school than I ever had as a teenager. I was learning shit. I landed a job as a part-timer at a law office and felt like I was heading in the right direction. I never had to share any of my personal problems with the people at the place I worked at. I didn't know them and they didn't know me and I discovered I was great with starting with a blank slate.

Several months later, Mom and Dad's divorce became final within the same month my sister's apartment house burned down, Dad had a significant truck accident, and Mom had her major stroke that led to open heart surgery. This was the last week of my first semester of college.

During the time Mom was in the hospital, which was most of that summer, I only went to visit her a few times. I know this earned the ire of certain family members who couldn't possibly understand the family dynamic. I was working two part-time jobs and going to college full-time and trying to figure out what was going on with my little boy.

Mother was released from the hospital and slowly recovered, and Dad continued to try to manipulate my favor as the best parent of the two. They both phone-bombed me, usually within a couple of minutes of each other. It was fucking eerie. I hated talking to them but felt guilty about not answering, so I always gave into my guilt.

Time goes on, and I graduate from college a couple of years down the road - a modest AAS degree, but a milestone nonetheless. During this time, the father of my oldest son was recovering from his meth addiction in a controlled living situation and I kept bending over backward to get him to come see his son on his weekend furloughs, which seldom happened. He completed the drug program and got clean, then knocked up his 19 year old girlfriend. Then he moved a couple of states away, presumably to get away from the same drug culture and friends who helped him get into the drug culture before, and he was an ass to his girlfriend who moved back to the state with their kid. God, I was pissed. This was the 3rd child he had created (one before me, one after me) with a girlfriend that he fucked off after making a kid, and then irresponsibly put his needs before any of his kids.

Then he died. He was in a motorcycle accident that rendered him brain-dead, and, thankfully, his family decided to donate his usable organs. That was, bar none, the most noble thing that had come from his life. But he died happy, doing what he wanted to do. I had to tell my 15 year old his dad was dead and watch the ex's family put him on a pedestal. I had done my best over the years to stay in close contact with his family so my boy would know them. After he passed, I couldn't go visit without seeing altars to the ex and conversations about what a wonderful man he was, a HERO. I get it. They loved him. They didn't see the consequences of his actions on his kids. Still makes me want to bring him back to life and fucking smack him. And hug him. I didn't hate him, except for when he hurt my son's feelings. I just didn't understand him much at all.

At the time he died, I was married to my husband and had my little boy. My husband never really bonded with my oldest son because he never understood him, either. He loved him but couldn't relate to him on any level. It's been a long few years. I helped my dad through his final stage of living as much as he would allow it while trying to keep my protective boundaries in place. My mother had it in her head that she had to come see him and bug him, I think to make herself feel better about having affairs while married to him. She became a martyr to her cause, refusing to remember the hell he put us all through.

When I told her not to go see him, she did anyway, behind my back, and then pretended she was his current wife when she snuck into the nursing home and held his hand, then requested to talk to the nurse. They caught on and called me. I wanted to KILL her. She apologized that I was upset. So, non-apology. Dad was pretty close to gone then and I think he thought she was me since he told a nurse his daughter had just been to visit him. He still HATED her and talked shit about her to me every chance he got. But then he talked shit about me to to anyone who would listen, so whatever. All I can think is she wanted what she wanted, consequences be damned, like this was some fucking Lifetime movie where everyone kisses and makes up and she feels better about being a whore instead of being a strong woman. If he had freaked out on her, she would have come bawling to me and he would have come bitching to me, and who would have had to clean up their goddamned mess? Yeah.

As it was, she went bawling to my father's sister, the only family member I am fond of, because I yelled at her. I knew she would do it, too. I found out about that some months later while talking to this aunt. I'm sure mother thought this would get her some sympathy and have dad's family down on me for yelling at her poor, fragile self. Fucking bitch. Like this time wasn't difficult enough. She got her divorce, she got the fuck away from him, and I was left doing all the dirty work (that she wouldn't have been strong enough to handle anyway, so it was coming to this). Her getting away is not what I begrudge her. I was the one he hated for three years for having to put him in assisted living and take him to doctor's appointments and take his truck away from him. She wanted to be his warm-fuzzy there at the end after not being there for the worst of it, after all the shit both of them had put us through over the years.

Yep. Don't want to see her any more. Will I? Yes, if only to keep my relationship with my sister, whose husband thinks we are "ridiculous" and should just "let it go" as regards our feelings with Mom. I know he doesn't understand. But we weren't all brought up in loving, enlightened families, now were we?