Little Bits of Pixie Dust

Life should NOT be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, martini in the other, body thourougly used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO, what a ride!!"

Friday, June 14, 2013

My mom has always been my best friend. Her and my dad got divorced when I was two, and until she met my stepdad five years later, it was the two of us against the world. She could never afford a baby-sitter, so she just took me with her wherever she went. We shared a home, a bedroom, a bed. Of course when my stepfather moved in I was a complete and total brat for about a year, furious that someone had taken my place next to my mom on the couch. I adjusted, as kids do, but we remained the best of friends. Over the years, she has dried my tears countless times, first because I had fallen and scraped my knee, then over a silly fight with a friend, then when a boy broke my heart for the first time. And then when a boy broke my heart the next time. I have forever admired her, for the woman and the mother she is. I look back upon my childhood with nothing but fond memories, lots of family, and my mom is part of everything. When I went to see the movie “Stepmom” in the theater, I SOBBED when Julia Roberts’ character is talking to Susan Sarandon and says, “You are the keeper of everything. You are a part of every memory, have kissed every wound…” It struck me so hard because my mom IS the keeper of everything; she is my entire past wrapped up in a good smelling package that knows exactly how to scratch my back and how I like my eggs and how that one time I fell off a tractor and broke my wrist.


Recently my mom and I have come to an impass in our relationship. After living with her and my stepdad for about four months while my husband and I were separated, she was positive that I wouldn’t go back to him and would forge ahead on my own. Instead, I chose to give my marriage another chance and she is completely against it. I know that she feels I just used her, used up her home and her heart and then took my baby and left again. A part of me even understands why she would be hurt and angry. I know the reasons why she didn’t want me to get back with my husband, and that same part of me understands that, too. A mother’s job is to protect her baby at all costs, and she feels that A* is not able to do the same. She just wants to take care of me, the same as she’s done my entire life. The problem is that I don’t need that kind of protection anymore; I can make my own decisions and have made choices that I feel are right for MY life, MY family. A* has never mistreated me in any way; he has made some complete dumb ass decisions that happened to affect our family, but he is still the greatest father I’ve ever seen and I love the man to death for how he loves me. I don’t feel that I need to defend him at every turn.

The last time I spoke to my mom was on April 27, her birthday. I took C. over for a family party and that was when he blurted out that the dog sleeps in Mommy and Daddy’s room, therefore spilling the beans that A* and I were definitely living together again, way before I was ready to tell. I wanted to get settled and have things go well for a change before I broke the news, gently. When he said it, the entire room got silent and every eye was on me. I blushed an unflatteringly tomato color and stammered out a subject change. After cake, everyone piled into cars to go and see my parent’s new condo. As luck (or my mother) would have it, C. rode with my grandma and I ended up with my mom in my car. Alone. She started the second I pulled out of the driveway.

“So, you couldn’t even make it a week, huh? I thought you could at least make it on your own for a LITTLE while.”

*Silence. How do you reply to this?*

“I am SO disappointed in you. So, so disappointed. (Your stepdad) is going to be furious.”

I still didn’t say anything. In my younger years, having my mom disappointed in me would have been the key to my undoing. I couldn’t have stood for it. I’m older now, and have a thicker skin, so I was able to hold off the tears until AFTER I drove away from the condo. But in my heart I was still devastated, because I still don’t want to disappoint my mom and I want more than anything for her to be proud of me. To think that I’m as good of a wife and mother as she was and is. Her opinion of me stings. It tears me up inside. This is the longest we’ve gone my entire life without speaking. I think of her every day, and more than once I have found myself scrolling through my phone, ready to text her some funny thing that C. did or a little antidote about my day, only to remember with a crash to my insides. Oh yeah, we’re not speaking.

And it hurts, really fucking badly. I miss her so very much.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home