October 8, 2012

• Freedom by Firing Squad

  I’ve been away for awhile.  Once I tell you about the following, you’ll know why.  I just needed to put my thoughts in order and then hide under a toadstool =}. If you see my Facebook page, I’m one of the dancers. =}

  Today my mother dropped by unannounced. It’s probably a good thing she came unannounced as I doubt I would not have agreed to see her otherwise. I haven’t spoken to her since March and it’s been the most peaceful months since. Anyway, she wanted to know why I stopped talking to her and why I seem to be bitter and angry with her when I do. I know she expected me to candy-coat things with her as I usually do. It’s too much of a bother to try and explain something to someone who truly has no interest in what you’re saying. I learned that with her a long time ago and have since not wasted my time. Today was different. She caught me on a bad day pain-wise and I let her have it with both guns.
  I started out how I’d tried to talk to her about all the crap that happened when I was a kid. She of course says she doesn’t remember any of it. Her famous scapegoat. Then I told her that my Dad actually came to me and apologized. She wanted to know for what? Ummmm weren’t we just talking about my childhood? I told her, “my childhood” and she said, “yes, it wasn’t perfect was it?” Hmmmm having to raise my brother and sister from the time I was 8-15 would sort of describe not perfect. Anyway, I could go on forever about what happened in the past, but the past is the past. It’s the present that makes me stay the hell away from her.
  When I had the 2nd cancer, Papa Bear and I lost EVERYTHING. On my second day in the hospital, my son called Papa Bear to tell him that our place had flooded and there was 2 inches of water throughout the apartment. We lost a lot of stuff there. A week into my hospital stay Papa Bear’s company went belly up owing him $5K when they did. He tried to get unemployment but was told that because they had no record of him working in the last 3 years that he didn’t qualify. WTF??? Turns out the company he worked for was taking out the unemployment but not paying it to the Unemployment Office. Ugh. So we were now trying to survive on my $800 a month disability. Our rent alone was $1725, car payment was $450…you get the picture. We knew we wouldn’t be able to stay where we were so I asked my mother if we could move into one of her bedrooms. She has a 4 bedroom home and she told me, “no, I don’t have room.” Papa Bear offered to come and clean out one of the rooms for her and put stuff wherever she wanted it. She said she still didn’t have room. 2 months later she tells me she has room for me but not for Papa Bear. At this time I’m going through chemotherapy and radiation in a friend’s spare bedroom on a very uncomfortable, cold air mattress. A few weeks later I found out that she won’t take Papa Bear because at the time we weren’t married! I was so hurt I couldn’t stand it. My mother has only 2 things that are important to her. Appearances and money. She was embarrassed to think of what her church friends would think of her allowing her unmarried daughter and her boyfriend to live with her. If that doesn’t make ya just a tad bit bitter, angry and hurt I don’t know what will. She sold out her daughter for her appearances.
  Towards the end of my chemotherapy and radiation, I had just one session left. My family had come down from Northern California to celebrate my birthday and Easter with me. My chemo and radiation were in the same city that my mother lived in. I asked my mother if I could put an air mattress down on her living room floor and spend the night so I didn’t have to spend the gas going home and coming all the way back down. By this time my truck and Papa Bear’s van had been repossessed and we’d had to buy an older gas guzzler to get from our spare bedroom to radiation. I had wanted to stay at my mom’s because 1 – she has a huge house 2 – she’s sitting on over a million dollars and I wouldn’t have had to worry about utilities 3 – she was 5 minutes from where I needed to be every day. So I ask her if I can stay for one night in her living room because it’s close and she told me no. Papa Bear and I were married by this time. She told me that I could sleep in the family room instead. The family room is very drafty and cold and would have been painful for me. She didn’t want me in the living room because she had a $500 vase that she was afraid would get broken if the air mattress hit it. I asked her if we could move it and her reply was, “you are a guest in my house and you will sleep where I tell you.” So much for being a daughter. So I swallowed my pride and slept on the living room floor without the air mattress.  The hard floor with no pillow would have been more comfortable than in the family room with an air mattress.  She of course tells me that she doesn’t remember any of this. How very convenient for her. Same story different year. My husband and my brother were both there when she wouldn’t let me sleep in the living room with the air mattress and both verified my story.

  This story could go on and on but my anger has wound down and I no longer feel the need to put our horrible confrontation to “paper”. The best part, the part I need to remember when painful times come up is the cleansing meditation I did when I first began to follow the Goddess. In that meditation I was told that my father was but a catalyst for my conception and my mother but a vessel for my arrival. I am beautiful because I am a child of the Goddess. I do not need the validation of such a shallow woman as my mother. End of story………..❤

  • 6:25 pm
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