When I was 21, my mother and I got into a rare screaming match. Rare, because I’d already spent years learning that fighting back was futile. If she wanted a pound of flesh, she’d find a way to take it, plus a little extra for good measure. If she felt slighted in any way — which she did if someone expressed their own opinion — she’d hold it in reserve, and it could be months, or even years, before she exacted her revenge. So I didn’t usually argue with MJ, except in my head. Instead, I watched her rail and scream as she crafted a parallel reality in which she was so high above everyone else in thought and deed that no one could possibly be worthy of her love.
My mother was not close to her family and had virtually no friends. Occasionally she would meet someone she was excited about, but her enthusiasm waned the moment she found something she didn’t like, and that could be anything from a perceived criticism to a human weakness. I suspect that underneath MJ’s blustery independence, she was lonely. When the Avon lady came over on Saturday afternoons, MJ would engage her for hours, slowly testing every sample and pouring over every item in the catalog, while going on about everything from the weather to world politics.
MJ didn’t enjoy being a wife, a mother, or a friend. What she enjoyed most was being idolized. It was never enough to pay her a compliment — it had to be a compliment of the highest order. One memorable Thanksgiving, MJ had made a new potato souffle. She asked her husband how it was, and he said it was very good.
“It’s terrible, right?”
“No! It’s very good”.
“It’s watery.”
“No, it’s just right!”
She snatched the hot casserole dish off the table and threw it in the sink, and the rest of the dinner was quiet and miserable. For days afterward, MJ brooded. In response, the family walked on eggshells around her and grew more eloquent with their compliments. “Best roast beef ever, thank you so so so much!” At 12, it felt ugly to me, like emotional blackmail, but I played along to keep the peace.
I had tremendous difficulties of my own at 21, none of which moved my mother. In her house, the sooner you stood on your own two feet, the better. I started working full-time at 13 to pay my own expenses, dropped out of school shortly afterward, and moved to California at 16. It was a hard, dangerous road. I gained experience and baggage, but not a lot of wisdom. I was angry and bitter, and made a lot of really bad choices.
By the time I stood up to my mother, I’d been functioning as an adult for eight years. Prior to that, there were whole chunks of my life she was never aware of, including molestations and rapes, but there was something particularly hurtful about her not knowing — or caring — what happened to me when I was on my own. She had abandoned me to the world without conscience or regret, and I was angry. So on a summer day in August, while visiting her home, I did not want to hear about how her husband failed her, or how she hated her job, or how having children ruined her life. I wanted to scream at her, and I did. I screamed about being beaten in a Greyhound bathroom, sleeping in drug houses, and all the suicide notes I’d written. I screamed about a lot of things, and as her face grew colder and harder, my anger dissolved into desperation. She was feeling nothing that I was saying — except as a personal attack.
With narrowed eyes and a derisive smile, MJ told me that maybe now I knew a little bit of what she’d been feeling for years. “You think I had it easy raising four kids? I didn’t. You think the world owes you something? It doesn’t. Grow up.”
So I grew up.
I grew up, fucked up, and made it up as I went along. I threw together a fight-or-flight adulthood fueled by fears, desperation, and anxious adrenaline. I had no idea what I was doing — I fought without direction, and flew with no map. I lived in the moment — crisis-by-crisis, joy-by-joy, paycheck-to-paycheck, with only vague, blurred thoughts about the future.
And I made a lot of promises, most of them centered around being the opposite of what my mother was. I would not be cold, or hard, or narcissistic. I would be a loving, generous mother. I would have good friends and be loyal. I would never make a god of money or material possessions. Happiness would be important to me. I would not spend my life in misery. I would be compassionate toward others. I would never lose my heart, and I would never accept someone trying to bury it the way my mother did. I would never again take a fist in the face, or a round of belittlement as my due.
The problem with self-promises is that most of them involve other people, who are usually running with their own script, which may or may not have anything in common with yours. What is a blow to you may be a feather to them, and your idea of misery may be their idea of happiness. Your feelings about love, loyalty, or friendship may not matter to someone else. Your hard-won sense of what really matters in life may not be shared. Happiness may not always be a solo endeavor, and maybe the god of money should have been more worshiped. Maybe the heart loses itself on occasion to protect itself from hard truths that are not ready to be accepted.
I’ve been reeling lately. There have been too many sad or traumatic events in too short of a time frame. I don’t know what I’m doing. I’m back in fight-or-flight mode, but I don’t want to fight anymore. So I’m flying without a map, and hoping beyond hope that I’ll meet with some understanding, some relief, and maybe even some good along the way.
I’m trying to mother myself, but I’m doing a terrible job. Instead of nurturing, I’m belittling. I’m berating. I’m taking things hard and way too personally. I’m recounting every failure and loss I’ve ever had, and staring back at myself with cold, hard eyes.
The friends who’ve stuck around as my body & spirit broke are telling me that it will be okay, it will be alright, and although I know there’s nothing else they can do, and they mean to be kind, I feel like raging and throwing a casserole dish in the sink. And then I feel guilty because really, I don’t want to be anything like my mother. I don’t want my friends to have to walk on eggshells, and I don’t want them to feel any part of the never enough that I am feeling.
I need to grow up again. I’m just not sure how, and I’m afraid — in fact I’m convinced – that I’m going to do it all wrong.
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