The Letter
I just served my mother with a Notice to Vacate. It was one of the hardest things I've had to do.
Doing it makes me feel like shit about myself. Everything in me is screaming what a bad person I am because I'm not making the decision to suck in my rage and discomfort every day and let her stay. Having her in such close proximity, without so much as a floor between us, has made it absolutely impossible for me. I'm sure she is shocked. And most likely, scared.
Of course, she replied that she had been looking at senior apartments. Maybe she had, in some casual way. But if she had been doing that, why not tell me? Why not acknowledge what I had asked of her and say, hey, just so you know, I'm going to start looking for another place today. I heard what you said, and I get it. But of course, that's asking for something I've never once seen her capable of: real communication.
Let's just list all the reasons I feel like shit about myself, shall we?
1) My mother is old. In my mind, she's frail. She can't defend herself.
2) She has no money to speak of. Well, she has alimony from my stepdad and half his military pension. I have no idea what it amounts to. Maybe $1,600 a month. (Although she is double insured, unlike the rest of America. She has more health coverage than 90% of seniors her age.)
3) She's lonely and alone. She literally has NO one else. Her sister will sometimes text with her, but other than that, no friends. And her sister and she had a historic falling out when I was thirteen years old, and they really can't stand to be in the same room together. Their relationship is paper thin. My sister wouldn't spit on her if she was dying of thirst in the desert. She's told me many times, "Let mom live in her car." Her grandchildren "love" her but that is predicated on my sister and me heavily nurturing the connection of both children in my mother's absence. Yes, she's present in Emily's life but has no real investment of time or emotion. (Granted, that's made far more difficult by Emily's autism.)
4) As her daughter, I'm supposed to be the stop gap. I'm supposed to always take care of her.
5) As her daughter - her particular daughter - I'm not supposed to care about my own needs or feelings. I'm never supposed to put them above hers.
6) I'm a Buddhist and I feel a deep religious obligation to be good and caring; to give and not need, especially from my mother.
7) Every day I face my Gohonzon and all I see sometimes is disappointment in myself, for doing this. For not cheerfully determining to carry on, no matter how I feel every day. Although today, I asked myself if that was truly Buddhism - if I was trying to be Buddha-like - or rather, like my entirely self-sacrificing grandmother. With the two extremes of my mother and my grandmother, I've always chosen to be like my grandmother.
I think that mainly covers it. In general, I feel like a shit, a heel.
But when I'm alone in the house, I know what I truly am at the bottom of me is a person abused. I'm acting like a frightened, abused person who can barely feel their own boundary, much less expect someone else to recognize it. It's hard to admit that I'm abused or a someone who has lived through abuse. It makes me feel weak or like a loser; I can't allow it in myself, although I would readily see and allow it in another.
But I cannot describe the feeling of chanting around her (I literally hear her skin crawl and I go out of my own body feeling it), of being gay around her (in essence, being myself), or just trying to parent without her judgement or intervention. Trying to - for god's sakes - sweep the floor. Tonight that's all I was doing, and she walked in after being gone all day and all she could say was, "What broke?" Not that I'm a forty-eight year old woman, cleaning my own house. I'm instantly, in her eyes, a child who fucked something up. And inside, I jump. I hop to.
I was so angry, I told her to "keep walking". I hate being even remotely angry at her in front of my child. I don't want to put Emily through what I went through as a kid; all the screaming fights. My mother raging at my grandmother while she (mainly) pleaded for my mother to stop.
All these mothers and daughters with tripped boundaries, trying to establish their independence and freedom. This is the karma I see. I set out to be oh so different. To be oh so good, and never need anything, be the savior and the good time gal, and the one who made everything better after her divorce. But the joke is on me. Karma is a bitch. I can't escape what is essentially written all over the mothers and daughters of our family. I only wonder how it will materialize between Emily and myself. She is so helpless, it's hard to imagine. I will be caring for her for the rest of my life (I think). But karma never just disappears so somehow it will raise it's ugly head. Perhaps someone else will sometime bar me from being with her.
My current needs are few. All I want is to be alone in my own home, and not be worried about my mother walking in unexpectedly. I don't want to be subsumed in that disquiet. I want autonomy. I want to feel good about myself again. I want a locked door. I want privacy in my own mind. I want to be happy as I am, with my family, queer, disabled, different, but fine.
The truth of the matter is, my fantasy was after a whole day of her being gone, that she wouldn't come home again. She would just disappear or stay gone. But that's not going to happen. So instead, I issued a Letter to Vacate. In my mind, I call it a Letter to Quit, in all possible meanings and interpretations of that word.
Now I just have to try and sleep. To not wake up at three AM as I have every night, feeling like crap about myself. Worrying about my mother and what she's going to do.
Doing it makes me feel like shit about myself. Everything in me is screaming what a bad person I am because I'm not making the decision to suck in my rage and discomfort every day and let her stay. Having her in such close proximity, without so much as a floor between us, has made it absolutely impossible for me. I'm sure she is shocked. And most likely, scared.
Of course, she replied that she had been looking at senior apartments. Maybe she had, in some casual way. But if she had been doing that, why not tell me? Why not acknowledge what I had asked of her and say, hey, just so you know, I'm going to start looking for another place today. I heard what you said, and I get it. But of course, that's asking for something I've never once seen her capable of: real communication.
Let's just list all the reasons I feel like shit about myself, shall we?
1) My mother is old. In my mind, she's frail. She can't defend herself.
2) She has no money to speak of. Well, she has alimony from my stepdad and half his military pension. I have no idea what it amounts to. Maybe $1,600 a month. (Although she is double insured, unlike the rest of America. She has more health coverage than 90% of seniors her age.)
3) She's lonely and alone. She literally has NO one else. Her sister will sometimes text with her, but other than that, no friends. And her sister and she had a historic falling out when I was thirteen years old, and they really can't stand to be in the same room together. Their relationship is paper thin. My sister wouldn't spit on her if she was dying of thirst in the desert. She's told me many times, "Let mom live in her car." Her grandchildren "love" her but that is predicated on my sister and me heavily nurturing the connection of both children in my mother's absence. Yes, she's present in Emily's life but has no real investment of time or emotion. (Granted, that's made far more difficult by Emily's autism.)
4) As her daughter, I'm supposed to be the stop gap. I'm supposed to always take care of her.
5) As her daughter - her particular daughter - I'm not supposed to care about my own needs or feelings. I'm never supposed to put them above hers.
6) I'm a Buddhist and I feel a deep religious obligation to be good and caring; to give and not need, especially from my mother.
7) Every day I face my Gohonzon and all I see sometimes is disappointment in myself, for doing this. For not cheerfully determining to carry on, no matter how I feel every day. Although today, I asked myself if that was truly Buddhism - if I was trying to be Buddha-like - or rather, like my entirely self-sacrificing grandmother. With the two extremes of my mother and my grandmother, I've always chosen to be like my grandmother.
I think that mainly covers it. In general, I feel like a shit, a heel.
But when I'm alone in the house, I know what I truly am at the bottom of me is a person abused. I'm acting like a frightened, abused person who can barely feel their own boundary, much less expect someone else to recognize it. It's hard to admit that I'm abused or a someone who has lived through abuse. It makes me feel weak or like a loser; I can't allow it in myself, although I would readily see and allow it in another.
But I cannot describe the feeling of chanting around her (I literally hear her skin crawl and I go out of my own body feeling it), of being gay around her (in essence, being myself), or just trying to parent without her judgement or intervention. Trying to - for god's sakes - sweep the floor. Tonight that's all I was doing, and she walked in after being gone all day and all she could say was, "What broke?" Not that I'm a forty-eight year old woman, cleaning my own house. I'm instantly, in her eyes, a child who fucked something up. And inside, I jump. I hop to.
I was so angry, I told her to "keep walking". I hate being even remotely angry at her in front of my child. I don't want to put Emily through what I went through as a kid; all the screaming fights. My mother raging at my grandmother while she (mainly) pleaded for my mother to stop.
All these mothers and daughters with tripped boundaries, trying to establish their independence and freedom. This is the karma I see. I set out to be oh so different. To be oh so good, and never need anything, be the savior and the good time gal, and the one who made everything better after her divorce. But the joke is on me. Karma is a bitch. I can't escape what is essentially written all over the mothers and daughters of our family. I only wonder how it will materialize between Emily and myself. She is so helpless, it's hard to imagine. I will be caring for her for the rest of my life (I think). But karma never just disappears so somehow it will raise it's ugly head. Perhaps someone else will sometime bar me from being with her.
My current needs are few. All I want is to be alone in my own home, and not be worried about my mother walking in unexpectedly. I don't want to be subsumed in that disquiet. I want autonomy. I want to feel good about myself again. I want a locked door. I want privacy in my own mind. I want to be happy as I am, with my family, queer, disabled, different, but fine.
The truth of the matter is, my fantasy was after a whole day of her being gone, that she wouldn't come home again. She would just disappear or stay gone. But that's not going to happen. So instead, I issued a Letter to Vacate. In my mind, I call it a Letter to Quit, in all possible meanings and interpretations of that word.
Now I just have to try and sleep. To not wake up at three AM as I have every night, feeling like crap about myself. Worrying about my mother and what she's going to do.
Comments
Post a Comment