C-Money and this bitch were in the bookstore yesterday and it suddenly hit me that Mother’s Day is almost upon us.
Mother’s Day is a complicated thang and a bitch is compelled to purge some thoughts on the topic.
A bitch does not have a relationship with my mother. And she is still living, so folks have the hardest time filtering that shit and this bitch has a hard time explaining it. Some folks attempt to do a mini-intervention. It is rather sweet and this bitch tries to be understanding, but the reasons for our lack of a relationship are the type of reasons most people are blessed to not have any fucking understanding of.
Mothers love their chil’ren and chil’ren love their mothers…that is the social understood and those of us who have a different experience are confronted daily with that shit. There are exceptions made for physical abuse and sexual abuse, but mental abuse…well, that is still seen as a matter of degree by the majority. Most people can not imagine a parent doing anything that warrants a severing of all ties.
This brings a bitch to Mother’s Day and people’s well intentioned assumptions about a bitch and my mother.
"You’re mother must be so proud of you."
Or.
"You must have an awesome mother."
Nope, this bitch’s mother is a hot mess walking and my ass is a survivor of the nuclear meltdown that is her life.
A bitch did not grow up with unconditional maternal love. There were some serious conditions and they were ever changing just to keep you on your toes and from ever meeting them. That was the game and it was played with tragic regularity.
People understand physical bruises and scars…we have been educated on the manipulation practiced by sexual abusers and the lasting impact of that type of abuse. But tell someone that your mother was mentally and verbally abusive…that your scars don’t show…and you are greeted with skeptical disdain. The more together you are the less people believe you.
Really fucked up people just stay fucked up, right?
Not exactly.
This bitch was trained from birth to be manipulated. For years, my ass greeted confrontation and critique with an automatic apology. The notion that something was not my fault was foreign…everything was always my fault. So, my ass was sorry that my co-workers car broke down…sorry that the printer was on the blitz…sorry that the economy sucked and so on.
At 15 a bitch hit an emotional wall. My world was shit and my mother was the great dictator of all things in it…my days were good if she was in a good mood and miserable if she was in a bad one.
Jump. How high?
Try. Try harder!
Produce…grades, trophies…tangible evidence that you were worth the stretch marks and sacrifice…the denial and aggravation.
Day in and day out…week after week…month after month and year after year. And then 15…and a bitch planned my escape. One way or another, my ass was going to flee. To what, a bitch had no idea. Just run…go and get out…end it or escape…anything but more of the same. Anything but a lifetime of this misery…this unworthiness…this inadequacy and shame.
A bitch was saved by admission to an early college. There is no doubt in my mind that going to school instead of staying for my senior year of high school save my life.
That first year of college changed everything and was worth the debt my ass took on to achieve it. It also illuminated just how toxic my life had been.
My ass learned through observation how to be...how to live. Perhaps that is why a bitch was drawn to Anthropology. A bitch learned how to interact, debate and listen. My ass learned how to select food, cross the street…and that a bitch wasn’t too stupid to do those things, too challenged to do them right, too weak to make decisions or too fucked up to not get my ass killed.
Being apart from my mother was the greatest education of all. All the experiences that my ass missed and all the learning moments that my ass was denied flooded in. One giant glaring light focused on what was versus what should have been…what was lacking when my ass was locked up in that pretty little ranch house on the tidy little street in that perfect little suburb in the county.
My relationship with my mother never recovered, but the power of her title…the power of motherhood kept her in my life for years after college.
You’ll never have friends.
No one will ever love you.
You’re stupid and naive and the worst mistake of my life.
Power, domination and control with harsh words lashing out and hitting their mark despite my successes and triumphs, despite my wonderful circle of friends…despite it all my ass couldn’t see her for who she really was.
Then a bitch got sick…fibroids and periods that lasted for weeks…pain and treatment…anxiety and an unavoidable surgical solution. A bitch was barely talking to my mother when my surgery was scheduled. My 20’s were coming to an end and a bitch was tired of the predictability of it all…the harsh confrontations over fictional slights…the automatic apologies that my ass no longer meant.
A bitch entered the hospital to have my fibroids removed. It was surgery and there were risks. A bitch was going on medical leave for 6 weeks post surgery to recover. C-Money flew back to Texas and was my rock. My mother showed up the morning of surgery and was my nightmare.
The best part of surgery is that the drugs kick in afterward and you simply don’t give a shit about anything but breathing. It is all a blur. A girlfriend had gallantly offered to take on the task of keeping my mother away from C-Money afterward, but her presence didn’t stop the inevitable nastiness. C-Money had secured a dawg walker for Betsey the sorta-beagle…a bitch wasn’t supposed to move or lift anything heavy and Betsey needed exercise…my mother felt that this was indulgent bullshit.
She left after causing nasty scene.
She left…while my ass was still hooked up to machines.
She left...and she was never really there.
She stormed out of the hospital room and never came back. A bitch remained in that fucking bed for two more days. She didn’t call when we went home or for several days following. She finally called four days later and demanded an apology.
She didn’t get one.
That surgery, that moment and my mental and physical recovery…well, that was my second birth.
A bitch does not have a relationship with my mother…and what existed before was anything but maternal.
A bitch no longer apologizes for shit my ass didn’t do. My ass enjoys the tiny tasks that were so long lorded over me as too complex for me to accomplish…balancing my checkbook, paying my bills, making choices, expressing anger and displeasure, enjoying the act of living and the joy of fucking up without fearing retribution and punishment.
And amazingly, a bitch feels certain…to my core certain…that my ass understands Mother’s Day better than most.
No one savors the taste and texture of food like someone who has known hunger.
So a bitch celebrates the mother figures that have been there for me over the years.
And this bitch is liberated and grateful for it… a survivor, and powerful because of it.
There is joy in this life.
That is what my ass celebrates on Mother’s Day.