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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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4:15 p.m. - 2003-09-07
I�m finally awake. Yep. After posting last I went back to bed and slept and slept and slept some more. I woke up yesterday around noon. After getting washed I crept downstairs and made myself a cuppa. I was actually kind of hungry and realized I hadn�t eaten since dinner on Thursday. Everybody came piling back right then and the questions started. I held up a hand, smiled and said, �I�m sure you guys did great. Thanks very much for all your help. I�m going to the diner, anyone want to come?� But�but�but�didn�t I want to hear what they did? Didn�t I want to give them orders? Wasn�t I going to supervise? Nope. I was hungry and was going to the diner. All aboard who�s coming aboard. Mike, BIL, and Elder Nephew came with me. At the diner I didn�t try and coordinate the cooking time of my choice versus theirs. I ordered what I wanted. I didn�t remind Mike about his blood pressure. When Nephew asked what came with a cheese omelet I said that was a good question and he should ask the waitress. I didn�t decipher, interpret, or micro-manage, I just had brunch. And it tasted good. We came home and again the questions started. What, when, who, where, I ignored them all. I smiled my seraph smile, gave everyone a hug and went back to bed. Way later, after the in-laws had gone home, Mike settled Wolf down with some raisins and a video. He came up to the bedroom, saw I was awake and asked how I was doing. Better. He apologized for being harsh Friday morning, I had scared him badly with my tears and shakes and (to him) incoherent babbling. I didn�t apologize. Did he have time to talk? Yes? Okay. I started talking. I talked and talked and talked. I told him I was tired of feeling bad about myself all the time. That I struggled and struggled all day long, every day to be �good�. To get it right. To be the best. The best mother. The best wife. The best friend. And that I never did feel like a winner. I never felt like I had gotten it right. I was always a screw-up. He was stunned. Me? A screw-up? How could this be? I was so good at everything! No kids in the world were better tended than ours. Look at Alex, off to college and doing great. And Wolf. Look at how well Wolf had come around. All that time I spent with him. He (Mike) knew what a brutal job it�s been. How hard and frustrating. I wowed him with my patience. What a good advocate I am for our son with the quacks and do-nothings over at the school. And both our boys had never lacked for anything. I had done it all. Lessons, braces, toys, bikes, teams, birthday parties, chaperoning field trips. For Pete�s sake, our kids had never even had a cavity! It was my turn to be stunned. He�d noticed? He KNEW the hell I�d been through with our younger boy? He thought I was a good mother? Why hadn�t he ever said so? I thought you knew, he said. Seriously, how could you not know? We have terrific kids, it should have been obvious. I just shook my head at him. I�m not you, I told him. I don�t live in my own little self-satisfied bubble. I�m self-critical to the point of being almost incapable of functioning without outside validation. I need praise and encouragement and reassurance. I see judges and critics everywhere. I never have a moment�s peace. If I don�t hear good things then I automatically assume I�m doing a crappy job. That I�m screwing up. That I�m a failure. He wrapped me in his arms and rocked me. No, no, no. I should NEVER do that to myself. I was great. He was sorry. Sorry he had left me to drown in my own fears and recriminations. He�d been a jerk. Worse than a jerk, he�d been a fool. He�d been a fool about so many things. Selfish and stupid and mean. What could I say? I agreed with him. I also told him the way it was going to be. The way it HAD to be. I couldn�t live as we�d been doing before. All it had gotten me was a nervous break-down. I wasn�t his trainer or his agent or his goddamn mother. I was tired of running the show. I wasn�t putting myself last anymore. Nor was I going to live blackmailed by the threat of that scrawny chickie-boo he had the hots for. If that�s what he wanted, well then mazel tov. Go. Have a good life with that neurotic pretzel stick. I was done, done, done tearing myself to pieces for being the antithesis of what he thought was wonderful and precious. I was over feeling ugly and ashamed. If he couldn�t love me and appreciate me and desire me the way I was, then go. He started to cry. Had he ruined everything? He had done this, hadn�t he? That I was so wracked up I couldn�t even get out of bed? No, I told him. I did this to myself. You helped, be clear on that. You helped plenty, both by what you did and what you didn�t do. But I was the one who had driven myself to this breaking point. So busy trying NOT to be my mother. Hanging my self-worth on external things and depending on others to tell me what I should know for myself. Believing if I gave and gave and gave and gave and never once was �selfish� that there�d be a prize. If only I could be �good� enough I could prove to the world that I wasn�t my mother. I could prove to myself that I wasn�t my mother. In saying that, it truly came clear to me. I said it again. �I am not my mother. I am not a drunk. I am not a junkie. I am not a selfish cow. I don�t cultivate stupidity, pettiness, and shallowness. I don�t beat my children and let others molest them. I don�t wander from man to man, from loser to loser. I don�t hide behind a gorgeous fa�ade and ignore my soul. I am not a friendless snob with a shiny perfect house which nobody is ever allowed to visit. I am who I am. Big and fat and loud and smart and stronger than I believe. I am a good wife. I am a good mom. I try like hell to be a good friend. I am funny. I�m a quirky dresser and have a style all my own. I�m a voracious reader. I laugh out loud. A lot. I cry at the movies and while watching parades. I�m a decent cook and a sloppy housekeeper. I�m a physical cripple, but not an emotional one. And I�m the best damn thing to EVER happen to your sorry ass.� So. I stood my world on its ear. Can I stop trying to be everything to everyone? Will I finally believe that I am not my mother? Can I let go the reins of being She Who Knows All and let those who should do for themselves, and even do for me once in a while? I don�t know. I�m going to try. And I don�t have to try alone. It may not sound like much, but when I got up today the empty toilet paper roll had been replaced. Hey, it�s a start. ~LA
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