Friday, May 10, 2013

Mother’s Day


MomBaby
My Mom

I know I am a few days early, but lately I have been thinking a lot about Mother’s Day.  For me, Mother’s Day is more than just Mother’s Day, it also falls right around my own Mother’s birthday.  So it has always been a double-whammy kind of thing,  May 10, today, is my Mother’s birthday.  She is 78.  

This week I was a little confused on what day it was when and all week I was planning that Thursday was May 10.  WRONG, Friday was May 10.  That didn’t stop me from calling my Mom on Thursday to wish her a happy birthday and ask her what she was going to do on her big day.  She politely thanked me for calling, shared what she would be doing and then we ended our conversation.  It wasn’t until about an hour later when I realized (after staring at my email and outlook calendar) that I was a day off.  Of course my Mom never corrected me, that wouldn’t be what she would do.

And so, lately I have been thinking about Mother’s Day and mothers in general.  You see I have an interesting relationship with my Mother.  I love my Mom, she is after all my Mom and that is what you are supposed to do, love and respect them, but I don’t really have a relationship with her.  Sure I call her frequently to make sure she is still breathing and I stop by and see her on a somewhat frequent basis.  I accompany her to Drs appointments.  I make sure that she gets her car fixed when needed and refills her medications.  When she got into a small car accident I took care of the insurance company and the police department and getting the car fixed.  I am a dutiful daughter.  But when it comes time to actually sharing my life and what I think and feel and who I really am, and she the same with me, well that doesn’t happen.  It never has.  You see my Mother is incapable of doing that.  No that isn’t really right either.  Maybe what I should say is that my Mother won’t allow anyone to really engage with her on anything more than a surface level.  You ask her how she is and she won’t answer but will instead turn it around immediately and say ‘how are you?’.  


MomBaby2
Mom and Me
My Mom suffers from mental illness.  I have an Uncle that gets very upset when I say this, but it is true and I’ve been done covering that up for a long time now.  I understand that she was a fun big sister growing up.  Her college yearbook reflects a vivacious and popular collegiate coed.  So what happened along the line I’m not sure.  What exactly is her clinical diagnosis is anybody’s guess because it was never a priority for her and Dad to deal with the issue.  When I was a toddler, my older brother remembers that my Mom had a doctor tell her and my Dad that he believed Mom to be manic depressive/bipolar.  The doctor wanted to start investigating treatment options.  Jeff’s recollection is that Dad said ‘No’ and that he and Mom could take care of the issues on their own.  Whether or not that was a proper diagnosis for Mom is besides the point.   All we do know is that growing up in a household where you have a parent that has serious mental health issues that aren’t being properly addressed is no picnic.

Growing up we knew that we were loved by our parents, but we also knew that there was a huge level of dysfunction going on behind closed doors.  Mom could be ridiculously kind and sweet to someone on the phone only to hang up and scream at us kids or at Dad.  Sometimes she would be in bed for days and when asked would simply respond ‘my nerves are shot’.  I remember her more than once threatening to kill herself.  One time in particular I remember her and Dad in a screaming match and she went to the bathroom, broke a glass bottle and tried to slit her wrists with the broken glass.  Dad stopped her, with my older brother’s help, and she spent the next several hours silently laying in bed in the dark.   There was also her incessant requirement for perfection.  Whether it was how our rooms were kept, the clothes we wore, or how we did our hair, everything always needed to adhere to her perfection standards or we would hear about it.  To this day I still cannot wear my hear completely straight because her nagging voice is in the back of my head telling me that I ‘look like a drowned rat’  unless my hair has some curl to it.  I have gotten more relaxed with my own housekeeping and lawn care routine over the years, but it took me a long time to be comfortable with dust bunnies and weeds.  

I realize this is a bit of a gutsy move blogging about this.  After all anyone could see this.  I’m not sure really why I am doing it, other than the fact that it is Mother’s Day week and I find myself dreading picking out a Mother’s Day card  because none of the sentiments seem to fit.  I find myself dreading hosting yet another Mother’s Day/Mom’s birthday dinner without my siblings present to share the joy and pain that is celebrating our Mom.   In these days of social media, I feel a profound sense of loss when I see others post and blog about their multi-faceted relationships with their own Moms.    I am tired of people telling me ‘be glad you still have your mom around, one day you will be sorry when she is gone’.   I want to respond, you have NO idea what you are talking about, but I don’t.  And yes, please be assured that I know my Mom did the best she could with what she had.  I know and I respect that and appreciate that.  But for me, for now, I just really don’t get too stoked at Mother’s Day.  It just feels a little like work.

2 comments:

  1. I can relate to almost everything you say here. My Mom has always been a little off-kilter too. Maybe not entirely in the same way as yours. But close enough. I struggle to have a normal conversation with her. It's as though she is afraid to get too close; close enough to actually understand who I really am. Then she'd have to deal with that. Yeah, I feel the dread too. None of the cards fit. And hearing about everyone else's close relationships with their mom's is a downer for me. And I do know that she faced things I never had to face as a parent (dealing with a severely mentally retarded child). So I cut her a lot of slack. I love her. I accept her for who she is and enjoy whatever good moments come along with her. And that's about the extent of it.

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