motherlode

My parents were divorced when I was 11, my sister J was 9 and B was just 7. By the time they got divorced they had been separated for well over a year, so the campaign to poison us against our father was well underway. For some reason all the of the hurtful things that my mother said about my father just made me stick up for my father and identify with him more; I didn’t want to turn out to be a hot headed mess like my mother. My mother was a master manipulator – still is to this day. She will do or say anything to get her way.

She's a combination of the emotionally needy and the secretly mean. Although the meanness was not always so secret, there were many times growing up that I didn’t want to have friends over because I was afraid they would see the craziness that I lived with. My mother would constantly tell us “never to have children” and that when we were young we drove her crazy with our “clinginess” and how we would “just attach ourselves to her.” Last time I checked, this is what children do with their mothers.

As I struggle now at age 34 with the question of having children myself, some things are clear to me. I never had a mother that treated me like a child, which I used to take pride in but now realize didn’t allow me to develop under a veil of unconditional love like most children do. I developed under the guise of only being loveable if I was doing what pleased my mother. I never had someone to cry to freely, ask for help with homework, or talk about the school play with. Any emotional reaction I had as a child ran me the risk of being ridiculed or belittled. My mother never gave me a hug or tried to understand what I was feeling – after the divorce, she was the only one that deserved sympathy or pity or understanding. She had won the universe’s pity party contest – her husband had left her with three young girls, so no one deserved more pity or attention than she did. She was the Victim Extradordinnarre, so any and all of her behavior deserved to be indulged and forgived because SHE HAD BEEN WRONGED. That idea of “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” – in my mother’s case it was “I’m a woman scorned and so I deserve all the pity in the universe because I was wronged.” It was really tiring to live with, and really exhausting to feel as if I had to anticipate her wild mood swings all of the time.

When I was a kid I was an avid reader. My mother used to claim that I was “hiding my emotions in books” and maybe that’s true but I learned a lot of shit in the process. At some point, maybe when I was about 12, I read somewhere about a person who had schizophrenia and was treated for the disease with lithium. I was convinced that my mother was suffering from a similar affliction – her mood swings were so severe there were days when I did my absolute best to just avoid her completely. I took to walking around muttering, “lithium, lithium, lithium” under my breath whenever I was around her and she was acting crazy, which in those days was often. She finally caught on to my muttering and grabbed me hard by the arm, digging her fingers into the space between my ulna and radius. “what are you saying?” she demanded. “nothing” I muttered but she wasn’t having it, digging those fingers in harder. So I yelled at top volume “I AM SAYING LITHIUM LITHIUM LITHIUM BECAUSE I THINK TAKING IT WOULD DO YOU SOME GOOD.” She paused and then started laughing her you’ve totally-pissed-me-off-now crazy lady laugh, which my sisters and I knew was a sign to take cover quick.

Then she just sneered at me, her distaste for me clear. She released my bruised arm, shoved it back toward me and said, “You think you’re so smart.” She leaned in closer and said “You don’t have a clue little girl.” Little girl. The funny thing is, that’s exactly what I was, but that was one of her worst insults for me. She knew I took pride in being “grown up” so this was her way of really putting me down. It worked. I felt terrible, not about what I had said but about being insulted about my maturity.

If I ever do have kids, I will not be one of those parents who is their child’s best friend. I don’t want to be my child’s best friend, I want to be my child’s mother. A kid can have plenty of best friends, but only one mother, and I know by experience that not having a mother who acted like one didn’t do me any favors now that I’m an adult. Am I afraid to be a mother because I’m worried I’ll screw it up as royally as my mother did? I don’t fail at many things, and I certainly wouldn’t expect or even allow myself to fail at being a mother, but what if I do it and I hate it? then I’m stuck with that kid for the next 20 years, resenting him or her for taking away my freedom. Having that resentment fester into bitterness and then taking out that emotion on the child. It might be relevant to mention here that my dad laughs at my tendency to “overthink” things. I think he’s right, but can you blame me?

How many times over the years have I listened to my friends say, “I love your mom, she is so funny/cool/hilarious.” Yeah, when you didn’t have to grow up with her. That’s the thing about it, my mother has done a great job at fooling most people (the big exception to this would be my best friend, Joan, who has seen it all – for some reason my mother never had any problem acting out in front of her, probably b/c Joan’s mom is a long-time friend of my mother’s who also was divorced). But most friends just remember her as the “cool” mom, the one that in junior high let us drink as much Diet Coke as we wanted at her house, then later drink as much beer as we wanted and after that even smoked pot with us on the back screened-in porch. Now I realize she just wanted to be accepted, that being the “cool” mom validated her and made her feel like part of the “in” crowd. It made me furious, how she could be so laid-back and nice to all of my friends and then act like such a witch to me as soon as the door closed behind them. I really and truly sometimes felt like I lived with someone that had a split personality.

nola

i am homesick all the time for a place

that technically is not my home

but has always had me. there

i feel inspired intruiged giddy with desire

for a streetcar ride or to sip a daiquiri on the square

to see bananas on the trees feel the heat

thick in the air nothing can compare

to the streets of that quarter

musicians on their beat lucky dog vendors

on their feet igor's never closes playing guns & roses

you are like that sweet child i never had

amber light through shutter slats

i want to make it back be back. there.

insecure

what happened to me my freshman year of college? why did i fall so hard so fast from the top of the heap down down down a bottomless pit of insecurity? what about the South made me second guess myself so much? was it the South? or was it something different...

in hs i was always one of the queen bees. my freshman year i felt like a tag along, never as pretty or as popular as my friends, which was a first for me. i was used to being the one that got all of the attention, if not for looks then for smarts and wittiness. add to that the fact that i felt like so many of my "friends" were not really even that - they would have left me behind for a guy, a cooler girl, a better deal in a heartbeat. i hate people who talk over you, so intent on what they have to say that there's no chance of them ever really listening to you. who when they quiet down long enough for you to talk, aren't really listening, just forming their next thought in their heads, composing it perfectly and waiting for your pause so that they can blurt it out. that's not a friend. almost everyone around me in 1992 was some version of this person, save for one who felt much the same way i did. and when i left i lost touch even with her.

murder

I am at the END

So first, the good news, we got our refrigerator on Friday night and it fit.

Now, the rest.

They tried to deliver the w/d also on Friday but it was scratched so they had to send it back.

Then they tried to redeliver it this morning at 8 am but they didn’t have the correct hose to hook up the dryer so they couldn’t install it.

Now maybe it will come tomorrow but I have to go to a hardware store today and buy some tubing so they can hook it up. Wtf? Isn’t that the job of Sears not moi?

The oven and microwave are not supposed to come for two more weeks. I am sure when they arrive they will be scratched or won’t fit or the douches will not be able to hook’em up.

We still have no ETA on when we will have the Internet. This is unacceptable.

THEN TO TOP IT ALL OFF THIS MORNING MY PHONE BREAKS. The trackwheel will not work which on my phone means the phone is totally locked and worthless. I think I am going to lose it.

Also, my computer is having trouble turning off and is running really slow and I don’t know why, it’s probably the next thing to go down.

I feel so stressed out and unsettled I want to barf.

WHY IS EVERYTHING SUCH A CLUSTERF*CK!!??

Why is it that every single customer service rep I have encountered in the last two weeks has no interest in customer service? I have an answer - b/c they're getting paid minimum wage and really, they have no motivation to help solve problems, they just want to put in their 8 hours and clock out and go home. It's one giant race to the bottom. They want to go home and turn on their 500+ channels of cable with endless mindless hours of reality tv to soothe their tortured souls - not that they can afford the cable with their minimum wage job, but there are priorities, no? Just charge it.

Our nation is f*cked and god only knows how much worse it's going to get, esp. if McCain / Pa(l)in make it into office come November.

WEH

dress

Almost four years ago I stood in a Catholic church and did the thing I thought I would never do. Got married. Less shocking than the fact that I a) got married and b) did so in a Catholic church was the fact that c) I survived the wedding planning process. Wedding planning is a test of many things - organization skills, budgeting, personality management. It's a test of relationships as well. For me the biggest test was not in my relationship to my husband - we passed pre cana with flying colors - but rather my relationship with my mother. My very jealous mother.

We've all seen the commercials where a bride is given away at the altar by her father and the mother looks on proudly, smiling beatifically in her tastefully subdued mother-of-the-bride outfit. The mother looks proud and peaceful, thrilled for her little girl on her big day. Cut to our wedding - my mother sits in the front pew fuming that my father's girlfriend has been seated in the same pew as she is. She tries to make eye contact with her friends and family in the pews behind her, seeking validation for the injustice she's suffered. Meanwhile, my husband and I exchange vows and blissfully exit the church.

Five years ago my husband and I got engaged at sunset on Oak Street Beach in Chicago. A year and a half later, we tied the knot, the groom with a dapper pocket square accenting his rented tux and me wearing pink shoes to accent my dress. At most weddings, the bride is given away at the altar by her father while her mother looks on proudly, smiling serenely in her tastefully subdued mother-of-the-bride outfit. The mother looks proud and peaceful, thrilled for her little girl on her big day. Cut to our wedding - my mother sits in the front pew fuming that my father's girlfriend has been seated in the same pew as she is. She tries to make eye contact with her friends and family in the pews behind her, seeking validation for the injustice she's suffered. Because as usual, she feels the need to make it all about her. 

When I started planning my wedding, I tried to politely solicit my mother's opinions on certain details, like the reception venue (she found us a graceful historic home, hidden in the hills, very Great Gatsby-esque). But when it came time to choose a wedding dress I knew that I wouldn't include my mother in the process. I was 30 years old, for god's sake, I didn't need anyone's validation. I didn't want to hear any critques or comments about my choices. I knew what looked good on me and what didn't. A year before the wedding my sister and I got preview tickets to a Vera Wang sample sale. I walked in and an hour later walked out with a dress. Clean lines, simple styling, chic, and unfussy. Perfect. I took pictures with my digital camera and sent them to my mother, who was unimpressed. I took this to mean that I had made the right choice.

But in the following weeks, I found myself wondering if I'd made a hasty decision. Should I have tried more on? Would I have liked a dress with a bow, with some lace, maybe one that was strapless or A-line? My mother kept telling me I was nuts to have bought the first dress I tried on. It was the wrong size she said, too fitted, too daring for the small town where I'd grown up, no one would know how to handle such a dress. The priest would throw me out of the church at the sight of the plunging neckline. And on. and on. and on. So I quietly made an appointment at the most exclusive bridal shop in the city to try on more dresses.

The next Wednesday I went straight from the office to The Ultimate Bride. I was the only bride in the waiting area alone. I browsed the piles of bridal magazines as I waited, lingering over the glossy pages of dresses and cakes and candlelit tabletops. Eventually a woman about my age, badly dressed in pants that were too tight and sensible shoes, descended upon the waiting area and called my name. I stood up and waved. She frowned.

"Let's get your whole party together to go back to your fitting room," she said briskly.

"I am the whole party," I said.

She peered over her out-of-date glasses at me. "We don't get many brides in here by themselves. And we don't allow taking pictures. Are you sure you don't want to have your mother here with you?"

I smiled sweetly at her. "I'm sure."

The next two hours were a flurry of girly confections in white. Spun sugar, ribbons of frothy lace, bows and dots and flowers, creamy white swirls of heavy pearly satin and silk. At the end of it I was exhausted. And more sure of my dress decision than ever.

I never told anyone about my moment of uncertainty. I knew that my mother would somehow find a way to use it against me. That she would make a point to tell the story over and over again, to friends and my new family, about how I got "nervous" and that I should have listened to her. I didn't feel like listening to her making my marriage into a story all about her. Because in the end, everything is always all about her.  And that's why I largely tried to leave her out of planning my wedding - for once, I wanted something to be about me. I wanted my dress to reflect who I was, not who she wanted me to be.