Sometimes I wish my mother actually was my mother-in-law.  That at least would explain her crazy, irrational behavior.  Too bad she’s my real mother!  It makes what she did to me even worse actually.  She may not remember, in fact, I guarantee she doesn’t.  One of my mothers wonderful traits is the ability to remake, or skew actual events so she remains untainted by guilt.  If you were to talk to her about the events that transpired, she would tell you about how I disrespected her in her own home.  How she would have never acted in that way to her own mother.  How her own actions were mere reactions to how badly I was treating her.  All of which is true.  I screamed, I shouted, I called her names, and I would do it again with those same frustrated, heartbroken tears streaming down the face of my soul.  I lost her that day, forever.  And I don’t intend to ever try and get her back.  After a month of her scraping away at my raw nerves, taking away what little I had left, and throwing me and my 15-month-old out in the streets with nowhere to go…

All because I asked that she and her rotten husband clean up after themselves and not leave their mess for me to clean!

I had grown up with this beautiful image of my mother! How strong! How idealistic! How green! How powerful! I wanted to BE her!  But I always felt weak, ugly, limp, a pale figure by comparison.  How could me, the fruit of her loins, be so pathetic?  She claimed to be so proud of me but always there was this undertone of disappointment.  I’d catch her looking at me with curiosity, as if she didn’t quite get me. I never trusted my own instincts.  Now I know why.  It was a little saying the women in our family say to their daughters, ” You don’t know nuthin’ about…”  fill in the emotion- sadness, angry, stress…love.

Well, I loved her, and I love her still.  I did some things that were wrong but I will never apologize because she will take that to mean I am wrong and she is right and she will bring it up every chance she gets.  How I realized the errors of my ways and came crawling back to her.  And she will never change and will betray me again. Me and my family.  And I guess in the end, we were both wrong.  I am strong and she is weak.  I am closer to that woman I thought she was and she is nowhere near it.

Only trouble is, mothers are supposed to guide their daughters down the path of life.  Mothers are supposed to give their daughters the tools to succeed.  My mother gave me tools but they were all the wrong tools.  I’ve dropped a few after realizing that they 1.) do not work 2.) were given to me by her 3.) keep me from being happy.

Oh, and a few more things:

I haven’t had a decent conversation with my mother since 2009, when she kicked me and my son out of her house.

She also had a strained relationship with my grandmother, and because of this I never really knew the woman.

I have a daughter now.

This last one chokes my heart and burns my eyes because she is the reason I am writing this blog.  I want to break the cycle.  I want to love my daughter and be a woman she can be proud of, not just a smokescreen.  Most people who meet my mother love her to pieces but the few who truly know her- her men, her children- know how difficult she is.  I do not want to be her.  I want to be free, fearless, strong, intuitive.  I want to regain my trust.  I want to finally meet my soul.

My father says that although he hated to admit it, he always thought my mother was jealous of me, her little girl.  He says the thought of that seemed wrong and weird to him.  But it would explain so much.  I guess I can blame her but only I can fix the sabotage.

And I pray, for the wisdom, and the strength, to pass what I learn on to my darling baby girl.  May she never inherit our weaknesses.