Being July in t-minus 1.5 hours, I thought it would be the most perfect time to write a story about Thanksgiving, the most popular autumn holiday in the United States.
Just kidding. We all know that's Halloween.
No, actually, I haven't written a story about my mother / my upbringing in quite a while, as I'm trying to get away from the whole "my parents abused me Waah waaah waah" mindset and look at things from a more balanced point of view. If I drag my mother's name and reputation through the mud, I'm no better than her, except for the fact that my stories are real and her stories are only real to her, insider her head, to help her push a narrative that constantly reaffirms her status as victim.
Remember, the only way to lie effectively is to wholeheartedly believe the lies you're making up as you make them.
That being said, I still need to get over some of the right BS I went through as a child. If I end up with horrendous dementia later in life, point to the chronic stress of my childhood as the cause. This next story is written to the best of my poor memory and if I find the embarrassing photo from my teenage years, I'll post it. I don't think words can do it justice, but I did my best...
**
Thanksgiving Photo
There’s a photograph of me that used to sit in some album
from Thanksgiving in the late 1990s. The photo is a joke, as I stand at the stove
in the small kitchen, holding a turkey baster over a plastic package of deli-wrapped
lunchmeat as it sat unassuming in a cake pan. I wore my long-sleeved cotton
theatre tee-shirt and had very short, thick brown hair. My skin was pale and my
edges were rounded. I didn’t look like a girl; I didn’t look like anything
really.
It's a bad photo. I wish I could look back at my teenage
days and say: “Wow, I was so young and pretty!” No, no, nope, at the time, I
was blundering through my days as a misshapen glob.
At the time, I found my mother complicated. It was only the
two of us. I had quit going to my father’s house and playing family with his
second go-around by the time the year’s Thanksgiving rolled around. I had
enough of being the butt of all of their jokes, and the other incidents weren’t
yet ones I could cope with on a conscious level. Besides, being carted off to
my father’s second wife’s, moderately populated, extended family to some
unknown-to-me location in the state every-other holiday wasn’t really my
definition of fun or comfortable. No one knew my name, who I was, or why I was
there. My father just stuck me in a room with other children under 18 with no
introduction and told me to figure it out. Long story short, out of the twenty-or-so
times this happened, I never did.
My mother’s family lived in Florida and we were over a thousand
miles away from them. She told me stories about these distant relatives, about
who they were and what they did. I had a hard time keeping the branches of the tree
straight, as I had few faces in my memory to match with the many names. She
grew up with these people, but now that entire community was only a piece of
the past.
My father’s mother, my grandmother, lived on the property next
door, about a mile walk from our front door. The last time I saw her was
probably a year before, where she came to a show we were putting on at the high
school. I recognized her instantly and she didn’t know what to do. She looked
at me blankly, knowing I was her granddaughter, but seemingly annoyed that she had
been caught in the same school lobby as me. Instead of doing what she probably
wanted me to do, take her ticket, pretend I didn’t know her, and cry about it
later, I took the opposite approach. A loud and bubbly “hello!” escaped my
mouth and I gave her a hug that wasn’t returned. She wore the same perfume she
had when she watched me after elementary school or during the summer. Then, in
that moment, I said something excitedly to the tune of: “it’s nice to see you!”
with all the genuine feeling of a Magic 8 Ball.
I didn’t really care to see her at that moment; however, pulling
her into a hug and spouting some happy words seemed like the right thing to do
at the time. It must have looked crazy to any outsider, seeing a grandmother
not have any nice words or loving actions displayed to their granddaughter. I
imagine any onlooker wondering what awful thing I did to make her hate me so
much.
Or maybe my family was just known as a mean family; I could
see as much.
Being Thanksgiving and with no family to speak of, there was
no way I could ask my mother to cook us a turkey, though she had offered, also
knowing it wouldn’t make any sense to do so. I told her that the bare minimum
was fine, sandwiches were more than I felt I deserved. She would have agreed,
though with context added.
I thought the photo would be funny, a comical moment
captioned: “Haha lunchmeat,” and I’m sure my mother felt the same. I had no
idea how sad it would look all these years later.
As for my mother, she was very stressed out at the time and
I, too, was a complete basket case. We’re a lot alike, both incredibly dorky,
and we both think we’re so cool and so smart. However, some of our differences
could hold oceans between them.
If you grew up during the 80’s and 90’s, your idea of a midlife crisis might be going out and buying a fancy, fast sports car. It might look like a man marrying a younger woman, dressing in garish, silk shirts, and going out clubbing until 3AM with a bunch of 20-somethings. It might consist of a long string of poorly thought-out financial decisions all in the hopes of reinventing the self into a younger, cooler version.
I guess I’m around the age of midlife crisis. I’m not quite 40, but I’m close, way closer than I ever thought I’d be.
However, I’m not sure if the term midlife crisis could adequately describe what I’m up to, even though it is tied to a feeling of reinvention. My entire upbringing was like a crisis on steroids. I grew up and faced tidal waves of abuse, so much so that I had gray hair growing from my scalp at age 12. I had poor emotional regulation, never felt safe, and was never given emotional support.
Also, shadows and echoes from my past still linger. I never had good hand-eye coordination or balance. I was forbidden from playing sports as a child, despite repeated begging. My parents were cool with buying me a new toy or leaving me to my own devices for days on end, but they weren’t down with letting me participate in the physical or social activities I was drawn to. I was that kid in gym class who was always last in races, couldn’t do a cartwheel, and couldn’t even bounce a ball against a wall correctly. I was afraid of getting hurt. When I was injured at home, I was punished or simply ignored.
Don’t know what I mean? Here’s a story from my youth that perfectly sums up the approach my family took to my injuries.
I badly twisted my ankle when I was 12 (back when I was growing those gray hairs!) and it was either sprained or broken. It hurt so badly, I hobbled. Of course, my father said I was faking it.
Now, I know most 12 year olds can’t walk on a broken ankle, but I wasn’t most 12 year olds. I had really bad depression from the abuse and emotional neglect at the time. I was in constant emotional pain, which led to a higher physical pain tolerance. Another example of this was my ability to burn myself with cigarettes at age 19 and barely feel it. For anyone wondering, I’m much better now.
On the first day of that vacation, I had severely messed up my ankle and neither my father nor stepmother gave a care in the world. When I got home from spending a week being bullied, harassed, and neglected by them, my ankle was twice the size it was normally and my skin had turned deep purple.
I tried to hide it from my mother, but she instantly snapped at me for limping. Then she ripped my shoe off and peeled off the socks. I was wearing multiple pairs on the one foot, trying to cushion the pain.
My mother thought I colored myself with permanent marker for attention and tried to rub it clean. I screamed and she realized I was seriously hurt.
No, she didn’t take me to the doctor or hospital either. No, she was just annoyed I was hurt, but at least she acknowledged it. Yes, it was normal that anytime I was injured around her, she took it as a personal offense.
Back to when I injured the ankle in the first place, I was on a vacation with my father and stepfamily. We were in the mountains of North Carolina at a dude ranch. It was awful.
No one told me the itinerary and they woke me up at 8AM the morning after it happened because we were going to hike a mountain that day. I remember sitting in the car, driving to the parking lot with this huge, sinking stone in my stomach. It hurt so bad, just sitting in the car.
But no, we started hiking. Again, much like gym class, I was last, very last. Keeping as much weight off my right ankle as possible, I walked my way up and down that trail, while my stepsister jogged the whole thing, with her brother trailing behind her, and whilst my father and his wife hiked together. I was late to the lunch spot and once I made it to the top, turned around, leaving my father and his wife up there to make out undisturbed.
At one point on the way down, I was in agony. Electric jolts of pain shot through my entire body. Silent tears streamed down my face. I began truly one-foot hopping my way down the trail and my water bottle shot out of my ugly overalls.
I was so upset. Wouldn’t anyone be upset? The entire time I was treated like a liar, I was left to walk on the trail entirely by myself, and the stepfamily was up to their usual meanness since the trip had begun. I didn’t pick up the water bottle. Any extra movement was too painful.
Of course, my father and his second wife were behind me on the trail, since I turned around basically the moment I made it to the lookout platform at the top. My father found the water bottle and when we were all back at the car, he yelled at me in front of the entire parking lot about my disrespect for the environment.
This is a man who threw garbage out his car window during my entire childhood, but okay.
Also on this trip, my stepbrother got angry with me and strangled me in front of a bunch of people and my father again yelled at me for starting the argument. I still remember the fire I felt with my throbbing ankle and his hands on my throat, as I picked his fingers off one by one and pulled his index finger backwards. I could have killed him in that moment and felt nothing. His and his family’s bullying and physical attacks had worn me down to nothingness.
My father was drinking Merlot with his wife on a picnic blanket nearby. Instead of saying anything to the physically abusive stepbrother, as I mentioned previously, I was loudly berated instead.
So, although those were two of the worst experiences I had with getting injured and then being punished for being injured, no wonder I was such a chicken in gym class. No wonder my midlife crisis or midlife crisis adjacent wouldn’t be a fancy new car, lip filler, or trying to date a 22 year old man-boy.
No, I’m trying to learn how to ride a unicycle. Why? We had bicycle and unicycle unit in my gym class. I was horrible, but I’m picking up where I left off. Also, there are times when my uncoordinated butt rides a skateboard through my kitchen to practice. One day, I’ll be brave enough to ride on the street. Maybe.
So, enjoy your midlife crises, whatever they may be. Know that you can’t change the painful experiences of your past, but know you can treat yourself better than other people treated you. If there’s unfinished business in your life, like a unicycle, you can finish it if it will give you happiness. You can also cut contact with anyone who abused you or treated you like garbage, in fact, it makes a great first step into freeing yourself.
It was my childhood, teen, and early 20's dream to become a published poet. For years, I submitted to the Boa Editions LTD annual chapbook competition, but my loose style with grumpy, angst-ridden themes wasn't for them.
Luckily for me, we've catapulted into the 21st century and everyone becomes their own publisher, whether it be writing, art, or music.
And since focus has never been my strong suit, I publish online art, writing, and now music. The first song I've helped co-write is nearly a completed demo, and we aren't stopping at simply one. In addition to the music we write, my volunteer hours are spent creating playlists and shows on RadioStPete.com, and sometimes helping out live on my favorite show, Florida Folk Show with Pete Gallagher.
With my silly schedule, being a woman who's busy as heck, a full-time job on top of all: my writing, my bubbly nonsensical commercial art, and music-related projects, it completely slipped my mind that I released two poetry collections... sometime within the 21st Century.
Find my latest collection of poetry, The Yelling, here
I mean, they're pretty okay. I went to school for English, creative writing, and psychology; I've continued to work on writing, despite my ego's protests.
Been trying to turn my personal horror stories into funny stories, because when I look back at them now, I see them for what they are. They aren't Earth-shattering moments, but rather moments in time where other people were entitled or abusive jerks, due to their own, personal issues.
I also try to help readers by including some of the weary wisdom I've picked up from all my years of dealing with people who don't have good intentions.
I was in my early 20’s, working retail as a sales lead in a clothing store. I was on my way to the top!
A woman, no taller than 60 inches, approached my register. She had short hair, like teenage boy short, and it was all one uniform shade of tree bark brown. She wore a tight-fitting tee shirt and jeans with elastic in them, over a stout and somewhat oval frame. Behind her glasses she wore a frown in her eyes.
I greeted her with a warm, polite smile, but behind my own eyes was a tired, weary brain in which my sense of self was pliable and flimsy.
“Did you find everything you were looking for today?”
I removed a pair of slacks from their hanger and removed a shirt from one as well. Carefully, I folded her outfit, preserving the crease of her pant legs and leaving the tags visible, so I could quickly scan her items in one swoop.
“We’re running a 30% off sale on our jewelry this week,” I said, out of sheer habit. I smiled at her again.
Her face remained stuck, as if her lips were somehow constipated.
She said nothing. Then, her eyes shot down to the gift cards in front of the register. We had a bright display full of loose, plastic gift cards of all colors and patterns, that people sometimes bought to give to their loved ones.
With one hand, she selected one. I can still see it in my mind’s eye; the design on the front resembled a package wrapped in a green bow, with our store’s name in bold, capital letters across the front of it.
Now listen, what you’re about to read is the start of a small series of events that composed a true story that haunted me for years. There are several reasons why this story was a wound for so long, but mostly it’s because it involves gaslighting, the psychological torment of retail work, and the convoluted nature of American businesses. Thankfully, I guess, the store is no longer in business, but I’m sure it wasn’t the only one to operate in this fashion.
The woman grabbed the gift card from the hundred or so others on the counter in front of her that clearly were new, not loaded with any money, and wouldn’t be activated until they were purchased by people putting money on them.
Clearly, it was empty.
She handed me the gift card after I told her the total of her outfit.
I asked, “how much would you like on this?”
“The full amount.”
“Oh, you can put whatever amount you want on them,” I said, confused.
At this point, I still thought she was trying to buy the gift card.
“No, I’ll pay with it,” she said, rather forcefully.
I looked at her, feeling even more confused and my heart rate rising.
My memory gets a little hazy on the following details, but basically, she tried to pay for her items with the blank gift card. I asked her if she had another gift card with her, as in, her wallet. She never once opened her wallet or purse during this exchange, but I thought maybe her circuits got crossed and she saw the gift card in front of her, making her think, for some reason, it was one she already had. We all have brain farts every once in a while, and on more than one occasion, I’ve found my own competency in public lacking.
Entertaining her delusion, I tried scanning the card for payment, but it came up on the computerized register as “inactive.” No matter what I did, she got more and more hostile. My attempts at mitigation were fruitless. Her emotions became volatile, and she was caught between anger and crying. She didn’t calm down. She rattled off a disjointed story about doing a purchase on a Discover card and then getting her return on a gift card.
Her account was already pulled up in the transaction. I opened her transaction history, and asked her when the return was done.
“Some six, seven months ago!” she spat.
My limbs were shaking at this point, as her outburst was attracting attention from customers within and outside the store. My manager was gone for the night, and I was working with a part-timer.
“I’m sorry, but there’s no returns under your account from any time in the last year. It looks like you have one from two years ago, but I can see that it was refunded on a VISA card.”
Her face got flaming, cherry red. Her mouth opened wide and her hands waved circles around her body. Fingers flew, feet stomped, and she threatened to call corporate. Her words turned nasty. She insulted me with quick jabs at my character and ability to do my god-awful job.
At that, I got a bit defensive and didn’t budge. I checked for duplicate accounts under her name, but nothing came up. She refused to check her purse for another gift card and she refused to pay any other way. I didn’t have the capacity to calm her down from this ledge, and I let her get to me, as I felt tears of frustration roll down my cheeks.
In the corner of her mouth, I saw the smallest inch of a grin.
She stormed out.
I knew that wouldn’t be the end of it.
A few days later, I got a scathing email from the district manager. My boss had a serious sit down with me and I was written up. My stellar record was smudged.
My anger grew. On a lunch break the same day I was written up, there was no one in the manager’s office, so I logged in, and emailed the finance/auditing department.
I took a diplomatic approach, and explained the situation, in which I was just trying to resolve this for the customer and I included within my intent, to hopefully prevent any situations like this in the future. The reason I did this, was because if the customer had a return matching her description on her account, I could have mitigated the entire thing by just using the gift card number in her file. I could have smoothed this whole situation over without shattering her weird delusion.
The other reason I reached out was because the witch was lying. Clear as day, I saw her grab that card from the empties in front of her. I didn’t know if she was just a brazen manipulator, if she simply didn’t think I was looking, or if her brain genuinely went defunct in that moment. I knew was I was right, but due to the customer’s tantrum and accusations, my two bosses wouldn’t believe the truth.
In her statements to corporate, the customer made me out to be the aggressor and her to be the victim, leaving out the detail of her snatching the gift card up from where she did, as well as not mentioning all the chides she hurled my way. I was beyond upset and inconsolable about the entire situation, feeling myself fall into a deep low point. My mother had done this sort of song and dance my entire life, being nasty to my face, and then running to the entire family, making me out to be some kind of monster. I didn’t have the foundation of self-respect and esteem yet, I was still quite young, and freshly hurt from eighteen years of abuse and neglect, that no one, not even my closest family, believed.
So, whether I realized it or not, I had made the instigation with that customer my hill to die on. I was convinced I could clear my name.
I heard back from the auditors a few days later, after they checked and rechecked records. What I thought would be my vindication had arrived, evidence of no gift card issued to this customer ever.
I forwarded their findings to the district manager, thinking this would get me off the hook.
Not long after, I got written up for emailing him. Apparently, I didn’t respect the “chain of command,” and by emailing him and the auditors, I got them both in trouble with the regional manager.
So it was, of course, all my fault.
And the witchy customer from my nightmares? The district manager issued her a brand new, unused $60 gift card.
Luckily for me, she didn’t come back in the store when I was working.
I kept my job, but was getting worse and worse at making anyone happy. I didn’t learn my lesson until much later, that I should have left it all alone after I got written up the first time. Nor did I realize until even later, that I should have played along with just how stupid that customer thought I was in the first place. Complying with her expectations would have appeased her tiny, rat-like soul, and avoided the entire second half of our interactions.
The 80% Challenge continues... as I posted another blog post I'm only 80% happy with on Medium.
I think I could have said things better and quoted other thinkers. Instead, I really just quote myself. I also have some extra words I could probably gotten rid of in a third round of edits, but as I reached 80% happiness, I posted it anyway. Here it is below and on the sidebar:
Why do People Fall for Romance Scams?
I have a confession. I fell for Squirmels,
aka Snoots, aka the Magic Twisty Worm, aka the prank gift that looks
like a furry worm moving on its own. I was in a toy store in Orlando,
down to my last few dollars, and just looking around while life passed
me by. A video on a small television within the display showed a montage
of silly scenes with Snoots seemingly to move without provocation. I
was mystified. There was no way I could conceive how it worked.
I
bought the stupid thing and was severely disappointed on how obvious
the shiny fishing line attached to the nose was in person, compared to
how invisible it had been on the recording. I was in my early twenties,
my life had fallen apart several times by this point, I was living with
an abuser, and I was under tremendous stress trying to dig myself out of
what seemed like an impossible, financial hole.
The
stupidity I felt in that moment was gargantuan. On the one hand, I knew
it was a trick, but on the other, a big part of my dopamine-starved
brain screamed “WOW,” and I had become instantly infatuated with the
object. It was a very cheap waste of money, but I had such little money
at the time, that it was a significant portion of my bank account.
I
felt conned and part of me knew it was a con the whole time. However,
the human part of me was no longer in control, while a desperate part
took over in that moment. Was it my inner chimp? Was it part of me trying to find hope in a completely desperate situation?
The
next day, my boyfriend at the time stole my car, stayed out all night,
and cheated on me. This was a man who had begged for me to take him
back, and I held firm, until he wore me down. He was just using me
though, but my brain had sparkled “WOW.” As I let him back in, I thought
we were finally going to work out. Part of me must have known I was
being conned, right?
I
think it’s everyone’s dream at one point or another to find a good
person and build a life with that person. No one is perfect and people
let us down. The bigger your heart seems to be, the more vulnerable you
are to being scammed one way or another. I was paying his bills, paying
for his food although I was barely eating, and living with him, when he
stole my car to be with another woman. I was also willing to be physical
with him, but I guess I just didn’t do it for him anymore. He already
got me, so it was time for him to seek someone else. I was his meal
ticket, nothing more.
This
happened many years ago and I could chalk it up to being young and
dumb, but I think it’s more accurate to blame feelings of loneliness,
desperation, and economic hardship.
Over the past few years, I watched several Dr. Phil episodes on romance scams and Social Catfish’s YouTube videos on the same types of scams. Within the videos,
the person being scammed is always in some stage of denial. I’m sure
some part of their brain knows they’re being conned, but another part is
just saying “WOW,” and taking control. Within the comments of these
videos, viewers write the same things, some version of: “I could never
imagine this happening to me!”
Well,
maybe have a little more imagination. The minute we think we couldn’t
fall for a scam, is the minute we lose sight of our own blind spots.
When struggling, anyone can become a different person, make bad
decisions, act out, or become vulnerable to predatory people.
I
was vulnerable after a bad breakup, which is why I let my guard down
and got back together with the jerk mentioned above. Innocent people in
these Dr. Phil and Social Catfish videos also vulnerable, but hadn’t
realized it when they started being conned.
At
one point, I had vowed to never let that man back into my life, but he
wore me down with his words, which is how I ended up in Orlando in the
first place. He never paid me back for anything he promised to, nor did
he keep any promise really. I was at war with myself, believing him even
though I should have known better.
The victims of these romance scams
are also in a tug of war when they interact with their online
predators. How many times has any one of them told the scammer it would
be the last time they sent money or a gift card? How many times has that
scammer worn their victims down? Begged them? Guilt tripped them?
Manipulated them?
In
life, we have to take a cold, hard look at ourselves and face the
objective truth, or as much of it as we can see. We can’t do that just
once, no, we must do it over and over. It’s painful. We won’t always
like what reflects back. I have mentally revisited times where I’ve
acted completely out of line, but despite regrets, I was still
responsible for my own actions and those actions were disgusting. Other
times, I’ve been abused and stayed. I’ve made poor decisions with money.
I’ve convinced myself that liars weren’t lying.
Nothing
about this is easy. Facing ourselves is what we should do instead of
seeking comfort online or with predatory partners. Participating in
these romance scams, for the victim, is akin to an avoidance behavior,
much like staying in an abusive relationship or hostile work
environment, as opposed to facing the true causes of our psychological
stressors. We avoid underlying issues causing us to be lonely and feel
unfulfilled. It’s easy to send someone money online, but hard to
interact with people in person. As we know, people let us down. It feels
safer to be hurt in our own homes. It’s easier to donate our money
instead of our time.
According to the FBI’s 2020 Internet Crime Report, in one year alone, 23,000 citizens reported being victims of romance scams
and confidence frauds, aka cons, losing a combined $600 million. I
wonder how many went unreported? I wonder how many people are still
sending money overseas, believing the lies of these scammers? I wonder
how many people still can’t see the string attached to the nose of toy?
If
there’s anything I can leave you with, know that taking care of
yourself first and foremost must always be your priority. If you haven’t
had an honest look at yourself lately, then it’s time. If you have
taken a good, hard look at yourself recently, it’s still time. We must
never lose sight of who we are and what we’re really dealing with in
this world.
We
all face challenges and it’s no wonder our oldest population is at the
highest risk of internet theft and fraud. In 2020, the FBI reported
over 100,000 victims of internet crime age 60 and over, losing a
combined $966 million. It makes sense, as it’s much easier to fall for
schemes, rather than deal with retirement, aging, the loss of a loved
one or partner, or lack of fulfillment in life.
Frauds
are easy, life is hard. You don’t have to deal with your own life, if
you wrap yourself up in some fairy tale a scammer has constructed for
you.
I'm only 80% on this new blog post as well. What I would have liked to see, to make this something I was 100% happy with, would be more quotes and maybe referencing one of the many self-help books I've read that helped me come to terms with our lack of relationship, such as this one here.
Actually, you know what, I just added a link to that book at the end of the Medium post. Hooray. I still think it would improve my work if I had some quotes from the book in there, but that 20% difference wasn't part of the challenge. The challenge was to post something only when I'm 80% happy with it, so here it is below.
This is also available on the side bar in the Medium section of the menu.
I
always wanted a good relationship with my mother, but it’s always been
strained. Anyone who’s been snubbed by their own mother will only
naturally want to have that missing mother-daughter relationship in
their life. It ties back to a deep biological need. It relates to safety
and feelings of self-worth.
When
I was little, she looked to me like this gorgeous goddess, one who was
always too far out of reach. She didn’t want to spend time with me, and I
felt burdensome, even from the youngest age. She was slim, tan, and
sassy. It seemed like she was good at everything, and like I paled in
comparison. It felt like I was playing catch up, trying to keep up with
her talent and beauty, even though I was just a child. This didn’t feel
natural, but I always held out hope that one day I would earn a place in
her heart.
I had this big hole
where our relationship was supposed to be, so naturally, even as I aged
and began to see her as human, just like everyone else more or less, I
still did things out of the hope that we would one day be close.
Despite my efforts to please her, every year we grew more adversarial.
In
my 20’s, I felt a renewed hope that our relationship would turn a
corner and that we could form a healthy adult-child and parent
relationship. This was catalyzed by a single event, one that ultimately
let me down and confused me in the moment. This memory left a smear of
bewilderment and disappointment on my brain for years.
I
must also mention that she was very abusive when I was a child and
teen, but I have always been willing to put the past behind us, if we
could move forward in a healthy way. The blame wasn’t entirely her own,
as she lived through tremendous pain in her own upbringing in an abusive
home, and the stress of her adult life was gargantuan. She couldn’t
cope with her past or deal with the challenges of adult life without
extreme emotional turmoil. Being a mom on top of what she was going
through internally seemed like the worst thing for her.
After
the economic crash of 2008 and a bad breakup, I found myself back in
Maryland. It wasn’t a planned homecoming and I was, in many ways, more
broken than I had been before. I had been through so much: graduating
with my bachelor’s degree while also working full-time hours, then
struggling to get a decent job with that degree, and finally, the
heartache of betrayal within my failed romance. My heavy heart ran all
the way home, even though there wasn’t much for me to go back to. The
entire state felt unwelcoming, but I was going to give it a shot, and
try for a fresh start.
We didn’t
really get along when I got back. I offered to do things for her around
her home, with my retail smile and responsible adult attitude. I put
forth my best efforts to encourage a fresh beginning, for myself, and
for us as a family. She acted hostile, as if I was the same lazy
teenager she knew from several years before. I wasn’t. I tried to win
her over, from a much cooler head and a place of maturity. She didn’t
bite, and we failed to communicate or have many pleasant interactions.
So, I was a little shocked when my mother invited me to join her at Artscape,
Baltimore’s giant festival of the arts, and an event that I had begged
her to go to during my elementary and middle school years. Nevertheless,
I decided to go with her, thinking she was trying to help me heal my
sad heart.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I couldn’t have been more incorrect about her intentions.
We
boarded the Light Rail in Hunt Valley early that morning. The ride was
quiet at first. We spoke little, and it was awkward sitting next to her,
as she always put me on edge. She was unpredictable, as the smallest
perceived slight could make her explode in rage. Whenever I was around
her, I monitored myself heavily, always mitigating my own emotions and
tuning into hers instead. She sat stiffly, and continuously scanned the
train car.
I read a book, as I
often did, and with one eye, watched the train slowly fill with people
from stop to stop, as we made our way south.
Finally,
we reached our destination. The closed streets were lined with vendors
in white tents and food trucks. Crowds of people meandered under the
morning sun, while music and excitement were heard from all corners. It
was a hot morning, and with the familiar buildings of Baltimore
surrounding us, it felt like Charm City was alive and thriving. We
stepped into the sunlight and merged into the masses.
“This is where they film Ace of Cakes,” she said proudly, as we passed a brick building.
“Oh, are they open?” I asked.
“No.”
At that moment, I thought I cracked it. I hadn’t heard of Ace of Cakes
until earlier that month, when I saw her watching an episode in her
living room. She told me the show had inspired her to take up cake
decorating with fondant.
I
figured that was it, we had made the journey so she could meet her new
hero or at least see him in the flesh, but we never saw Mr. Cake Ace, at
least not that I was aware.
We
wandered from tent to tent, looking at all sorts of different arts and
crafts for sale. It reminded me of a similar, giant crafts fair in
Lancaster, PA, one that I had attended with a friend in high school,
only five or six years earlier.
My
mother acted as she always did. Her sentences were short and her words
were curt, but she wasn’t entering any extreme highs or lows, so I let
myself relax a little.
This
experience was one of the only times we had done something together as
mother-daughter in nearly a decade, and one of the first times we had
done anything since I was a full-fledged adult. I side-eyed her and
found she was basically the same. I could tell she was putting on a
brave face in the sea of people, yet she still grabbed her purse with
both hands when we found ourselves entangled in a dense part of the
crowd. It was customary for her face to be puckered into a frown, and
this day was no different. As long as I could remember, she always looks
slightly disgusted, like she smelled sour milk.
Imagine,
if you will, my utter shock, when she transformed before my eyes from
the frowning, stiff-armed woman, into something completely opposite and
out of character.
We found
ourselves near the waterfront. Target in sight, she bunny hopped away
from me without a word. She moved like some kind of mystical elf, hips
swaying and neck forward, towards one of the larger tents. I watched
from behind her, in bewilderment. Her face somersaulted into a smile,
and her limbs became animated, rubbery, even. She had gone from
reserved, stern, and sensitive, to happy, delightful, and dare I say,
teenage-like.
My eyelids must
have recoiled into my skull, while my head contorted to the side,
resting at a cool 90 degrees. A cartoonish, “huh?” escaped my mouth
without me even knowing. My lips opened into the shape of a train
whistle, and I lingered like a deer, ready to bolt, but my legs rooted
in place. I couldn’t help but watch in complete and outright confusion.
“Hi guys!” she said, in her most feminine of voices.
She galloped into the booth and wiggled behind the display table.
I
was maybe eight feet away. I could see her chattering, her arms making
large, round circles in the air, and her gleaming smile, but I couldn’t
make out most of what she was saying, other than a few words that came
out louder than others.
I closed the gap by two additional feet, but that was it.
Surely, she would introduce me, I mused.
One
person behind the table stood out from the rest. He was a handsome man
in his 20’s, with shaggy hair held under a baseball cap, arms full of
tattoos, and noticeably large biceps.
My
mother went on and on to this young man, who was around my age at the
time, and he didn’t get many words in, nor did anyone else behind the
table.
After another few minutes,
with me watching her speak enthusiastically to these vendors, she bid
them goodbye, and continued away from the tent and back the way we came.
“I know them,” she said, smugly.
“Who?” was all I could ask.
“We do stained glass.”
She
gave a brief summary of the lives of the people to whom she was just
speaking, not hiding the fact she was gushing over the one who was my
age.
I said something to the tune of, “Oh, he sounds great.”
He
was quite handsome, but I never thought my own mother could be hitting
on someone over twenty years her junior, especially considering she had
just married her boyfriend the year before. For the briefest second, I
thought maybe she was trying to set me up with this age-appropriate
person. Maybe she was feeling bad that the end of my relationship had
left me in such turmoil. Maybe she was trying to do something nice?
No,
the look on her face was the only confirmation I needed. She hadn’t
thought of my situation with any compassion or empathy; she probably
hadn’t thought of it at all, other than being annoyed that I was back.
She glared at me and then rolled her eyes. Then, she muttered something
nasty about my appearance and intelligence, her voice so low in tone,
that I couldn’t understand all of it.
Heck,
she couldn’t even be bothered to introduce me to any of her friends
behind that table whatsoever. It was pretty rude, but at the time, my
thoughts were too jumbled to even get that far. She had morphed back
just as quickly to the mother I knew, back into the woman who was always
unhappy and uncomfortable.
It
hit me some ten years later, that the only reason she dragged my butt
down there in the first place, was to brag. Something compelled her to
show off she was hanging out with an attractive, successful 20-something
artist, and his family.
Even
though she birthed me, my mother treated me, at best, like an unwanted
little sister, among other things. Her and my aunt, her own sister, were
in constant rivalry. Her envy knew no bounds; her competitive nature
was the frame of my entire childhood. I could do nothing without her
learning to do it and do it better than me. If I wanted to get better at
something, like drawing or computers, she would throw herself into it
too, and then show off her new skills to anyone who’d pay attention,
like my father, the neighbor, her friends from the college she attended
when I was in elementary school, or her new husband.
I
had gone into the day with optimism, and almost as a responsibility to
look out for her in the big city, one that had scared her so much when I
was a child. I thought we were really turning a corner and I had
finally won her respect. I thought she was finally starting to see me
differently. I felt she had considered the hardships I had been through,
the obstacles I overcame in my rocky launch into adulthood, and saw me
as someone she would like to be around.
No, she just wanted to brag.
We
can go our entire lives and play out the same patterns, over and over
again, but with different people. We can tell the same stories on
repeat, and we can see little change in our own lives.
I
don’t want to live like my mother. Without having her love and support,
I’ve had a hard time emotionally. With the abuse she doled onto me, I
have a foundation of negativity and self-loathing. I hated myself for
years because it was beyond her capacity to treat me like someone she
valued. I twisted myself in knots, just trying to earn her love, and
attempting to receive the tiniest bit of praise or positive attention. I
had meltdowns on a regular basis, from the exhaustion of walking on
eggshells constantly, trying not to upset her further, as she was
already so miserable, and as my existence only made things worse in her
eyes.
Even now, she still uses me
as the scapegoat in her personal story. I’m the be-all-end-all
apocalypse she turns to, the one she points the finger at, and the
no-good arbiter of her bad luck. I show up in her stories whenever she
needs to vent out whatever injustice the world has given her on a single
day, though we haven’t spoken in years.
I refuse to be like this, although it’s been an uphill, endless battle.
There
are many times I’ve slipped. I’ve been overwhelmed and shouted at
someone, I’ve lied and gaslighted without meaning to, and I’ve ran for
the hills from people who probably didn’t mean the harm they inflicted. I
cowered from her when I was a child. When I was grown, I let others
into my life who put their hands on me, and I cowered from those too,
until I was able to make yet another escape.
Every
day I have a choice to be better, to act better, and to never be
envious or in competition with people over frivolous, surface-level
nonsense. I give others the benefit of the doubt, and with an open,
loving heart, I’ve still been sucked into worlds of negativity and pain.
I end these relationships, after trying to save them one time too many,
but I do end them.
My mother and
I will never be close. I will never have her respect, just as she will
never have her own mother’s respect. The difference is, she’s still
after her own mother’s approval, but I’ve flushed the whole notion of
getting hers from my reality. Though it may not be entirely impossible,
earning her love is a goal I refuse to seek any longer.
I
will always love her and be grateful for her, as she is one of the most
fascinating people I’ve ever known. She’s a combination of puzzle
pieces that will never fit together. She’s so cruel to most people she
meets in everyday life, but she’s completely unaware of the hurt she
inflicts on others. She complains constantly about people around her
being oblivious, not conscientious, and entitled, yet she herself is
noticeably rude.
She and her
mother, my grandmother, both act the same in conversations. They sit
quietly, waiting for their turn to speak, without having listened to a
single word the other person has said.
Of
course, I hope she grows. Her own childhood was awful, and no one
deserves what she went through. She, like all of us, has a choice on how
she will act in every moment. I wasn’t able to be what she needed, nor
was she able to be what I needed, but that’s in the past now. The Artscape
interaction, and the many other confusing interactions we had, are but
symptoms of self-hate and a life ruled by jealousy and envy. If she
could zoom out from her life, forget about all the negative experiences
she’s been through, and look with fresh eyes, I wonder what she’d see.
