On December 30, 08...I allowed my mother back into my life, only for a moment...it was just long enough to catch the glimpse of reality that I cannot keep her there....
(sent Sun 1/04/09 4:55 PM)
Beth,
I received all of your messages....I just have no idea how to talk to you. I met with you because part of me believes Gabe should know his family...especially since he has no grandmother, other than what he knows his great-grandmother to be. Ehi, the guy I told you about, told me I should say what I need to say over the phone....but I can't. I have always been that way, it is simply easier to say what I feel in writing so if this seems shallow or cowardly to you, I apologize.
There are a few things that you have said that tell me you have not changed much. Missed me maybe, but not changed. You asked me what happened, let me refresh your memory.....
I met you at 15, not having any knowledge of who you were or why you were never in my life up to that point...I really may never know why you had better things to do than try to be my mother for 15 years, I only have the 3 versions of the story that you, my dad, and my grandmother have told me. Believe it or not, my father has always been the most trustworthy when it comes to those things, he can tell it best how it was, without any excuses or feelings involved. Maybe that is because he is a man, and less emotional, or maybe it was because you and my grandmother have never gotten along. You tell the story as if you were a victim, you were just a teenager, had no idea how to be a mother or to fight for your child. That excuse is old with me, you were only a teenager for 3 more years after I was born, and at the time I stopped seeing you, you were almost 20. Still young, I realize...but you have gotten to be a teenager since I was born, if you ask me. You have never been able to hold down a job, you went weeks at a time without talking to me when I lived there, and you have never stepped up to any of your responsibilities. In my eyes, Walter is the only reason you have been able to function all of these years, he is your angel...but he is also your crutch. I knew more about being a mother at 16 than you do now. You may be excused for being selfish at that age, but what about now?
By the time I was 18, and you gave me a week to get out of your house, I had been asked to leave 3 times....although I had no place to go aside from moving in with Jenny's parents, who were happy to have me...and you called me to tell me to come home when I had went to stay with her. I complied this time, since I was old enough to get a place on my own, the week after my senior prom. I have never figured out what set you off to prompt that letter, but at this point, that may be one of the few things I am grateful to you for...so it doesn't matter.
When I moved in with you, you allowed me to smoke, drink, and introduced me to weed...within days of moving in. I had been sheltered before living with you, which you were aware of, so naturally I thought I was in heaven. Little did I know that I would have to constantly babysit you....cleaning up your mess if you left the bathtub running until the water spilled onto the floor, let the pepper steak catch fire on the stove while you went outside for over an hour (steak strips cook in minutes, you know) or worry about you when you "went to get groceries" and would come back an hour or more later with nothing but a cooler full of beer and when you ate nothing and drank beer all day, all the while taking anti-depressants. I had sex for the first time shortly after you took me to get birth control, and I had no idea what I was doing, but I thought if the person who looks out for my best interest is okay with it, why shouldn't I be?
I found my high school journals while cleaning up my room last weekend, and it amazes me as a woman and a mother, looking back on it....how incredibly immature and self-obsessed you were. I had written about the whole experience where you took my car, that was not even yours to take by the way, and had still owed me money you claimed was "stolen" from your dashboard but was not willing to give me a few weeks to try to pay for it. You used the situation with Jeff as an excuse to take it, but you wanted a new car the minute I got one. All the things you NEVER gave me, including that car - since Tracey and Grandma was the reason I had it - and you couldn't even let me have that. I wrote about all the times you stopped talking to me, the times there would be nothing to eat in the house, only beer....the times you got my friends- who were driving themselves - drunk and high. I wrote about how you got angry at me, or Walter, when he said "bye, baby" to me....as he said every morning...which you would know if there were any other mornings you were not hung over in bed. I say where you wet yourself in bed, I would strip the sheets sometimes and flip the mattress. I worried about you, and I was more of a mother to you than you ever were to me. I stopped drinking after I was 16 and didn't drink again until I could feel safe in my own home, because I never knew when I may be called to duty to take care of you when you were drinking. I will never forget the time we went to that New Year's party in Black Ankle, where I was not only drunk but pissed because that racist bas***d kept talking about Sinbad hosting the New Years show, and I had to stay there arguing with him because there was still alcohol left for you to drink. You made me drive home. Anything could have happened, I could have wrecked. But I suppose I should have been the adult in that situation and stayed sober to drive you home, right? That was the same night you told me that I didn't know anything about being a mother, I told you that I knew I wouldn't be able to stay away from my own child for 15 years, and you told me that I should never have children then. Drunken logic, I suppose...I will never understand that statement.
I use to hate when my friend Michelle came over, you acted like more of a mother to her than you did me. You told her you loved her, and was so quick to always tell her she could come over anytime, and the poor girl thought you were fun and games all the time like that, always ordering pizza and having sodas for us to drink, just like I thought when I first moved in. Little did she know that you never even paid for me to go to the doctor...and if you weren't speaking to me that particular week, I could have committed suicide in my room and it would be days before you'd notice. When I was coughing up blood and could barely swallow, I had to gather the courage to come tell you, seeing as how you were not speaking to me at the time for some unknown reason....and when I showed you the blood, you said hmmmm.....and nothing else. I then had to muster up the courage to call my father, who I left to be with you, and who had made you sign a written agreement that you would be financially responsible for me when I moved in with you. Of course, I had to jump through the normal hoops of the interrogation from my step-mother to be able to speak with my father. He told me that when his throat bled like that, he had tonsillitis, but did not offer to take me to the doctor, since it was the responsibility you had agreed to. When I came to you with my eyes, I couldn't see well in class, you made an appointment for me at the eye doctor near the mall, and I thought "wow, she is finally going to pay for a doctor visit" but I went by myself, and I paid 425.00 for the glasses BY MYSELF. I still thought, "maybe she will reimburse me"....but as you know, that never happened, either.
Anyway.....fast forward to the time period when you asked "what the F**k happened?" , referring to when I lived with Curtis and we worked at the same place in High Point....I would not say we worked "together", as you may have shown up for work three days out of the couple of months I worked there. I thought that we were moving forward when I took that job, but it became obvious to me that you were the same person that asked me to leave your house. It is clear to me now, as it was then, that you are still that person...always have been. That teenager that you use as an excuse for not being my mother in the beginning, is the same reason you still have no daughter. I am almost 29 years old, and I have had to basically raise myself....I was taken from the only person who knew anything about the ability to be a parent, my grandmother, when my dad decided to marry that monster of a step-mother, at 5 years old. Since then, I have felt that I was alone. I traded financial stability with physical and emotional abuse for more emotional abuse and no financial stability what so ever, along with neglectful parenting when I left my father's house to live with you. I use the term parenting loosely.
When I worked at the furniture place, I found myself in a situation where our boss, Kay, was constantly coming to me asking where you were, if you were ok, and why you were not at work. They would see in me that I was not the type to miss a day for any reason, so I guess everyone was confused as to why you were calling in on a daily basis. She could tell in my evasive answers of saying I don't know constantly, that I might really have an idea but didn't want to tell. One day, Kay called me into her office and shut the door and asked me to tell her about you. I told her the entire story, in a condensed version, taking responsibility for most of our relationship's shortcomings. Kay told me what kind of potential I had, and knew that my grandmother was trying to convince me to move in with her in Lumberton. She encouraged me to do so, and told me some of the guys would take the van and move my stuff there for free, if I would just go.... she also was one of the first people to make me believe this whole thing was not my fault, that I was not responsible for your behavior, or your problems. My therapist from the time I had community service had already explained it to me, but I was not at a place where I was ready to believe anyone at the time. I did like therapy, although I could not talk about every detail of my home life with you, because she threatened to call social services when she found out you were driving my friends and me around ripped out of your mind.
Of course, you would not pay for my therapy, and with no more than I was making at my jobs, I was not able to afford it, so I stopped going. I was diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, but made it clear that I wanted no medications for it, I believed that my feelings were reactions to my life's circumstances, and taking meds to make myself numb was the equivilent to your drowning your feelings with alcohol. Once Kay had me convinced that I should not be suffering for your issues, I decided the only way to keep myself from doing so was to stay away from you completely. I thought maybe one day, if she realizes what she is doing to herself, she will realize the alcohol is the enemy. I didn't know if that could happen, and seeing my father progressively get worse over the years dampened my hope for you as well.
When I called you...my initial intention was to tell you to leave my grandmother alone. She called me and told me each time you called, but she felt like she was stuck in the middle. As much anger as she has toward you for "abandoning me" and then what I went through when I lived there, I am actually suprised and proud of her that she told me. When I called, though, I wanted to hear what you had to say. I heard "I am sorry, and I want to be in your life" and at first, I thought that was all I needed to hear from you. But a few weeks and more conversations later, I realize that sorry isn't enough.
What are you sorry for, exactly? The last time I spoke with you, you referred to the "first time" we went our seperate ways, when you kicked me out, as being because of my teenage years. My teenage years? What teenage years? Are you referring to the 3 years I spent obsessively worrying over an alcoholic who I just met, who told me she was going to make up for 15 years of her absence, and who barely spoke to me half of the time? The one who would leave notes out for me not to eat her husband's food, when she kept none for me in the house, and notes to clean HER dishes and floors where she sat around the house drinking all day when I still had homework to do and had been at school and work all day? You are the only one of us who knows what being a teenager is like, you have been one for 29 years now. As my therapist put it, you have too many enablers in your life, and I couldn't be one of them. I still can't. Another conversation we had, you referred to the thesis I left in my old room about alcoholics and their effect on the family, did it not occur to you that you ARE an alcoholic? Have you ever been an entire week without alcohol? The statement when you said "you got it in your head that I was an alcoholic" It was not in my head, it is the truth. That is something you need to deal with, or not, it no longer concerns me now, and I have spent years making sure that it stays that way. How dare you call me after all this time and blame your issues on me? And how dare you ask me to come back to that place and bring my son with me? I will not let you bring him or me down with you.
I am sorry if it was wrong of me to take the money, I felt you owed me....not just from the time you never paid me back 600.00 I worked 2 years on weekends to make since 8th grade, the money you never paid to Fingerhut and charged in MY name...then gave me the phone when they called to collect, or the money you took from me when you claimed me on your taxes and I was living alone, at your request. You never even answered to me for that. When I went to Grandma's house to call you about it, I heard Walter tell you it was me, and did you want him to tell me that you were not home, when you told him to say you were at your mother's, I looked at your mother and laughed. That was an example of your life, you run from it, make excuses for yourself, and blame everyone else for your problems. I am just happy that I have learned to take responsibility for my own actions, so I didn't wind up lonely and self-pitying my entire adult life. I realize you have issues, but they are not excuses, I have enough issues in my life to where I could have easily turned it into a lifetime of mistakes and hurt on others, but I refuse to carry on the torch that you and my father passed to me. I am sorry if this seems harsh, or makes you drink 3 bottles of liquor, but I can't continue to hold my feelings back in fear that you will hurt more. You hurt because of you, and I can't allow you in my life to hurt me and my son, too. You see, he has never seen me drink...and he has no clue what a drunk person is...I plan on keeping it that way.
I am not sure if anything will ever make you change, now that Walter is drawing those checks, it is painfully clear that you will never have to be an adult. But if you change for anyone, do it for yourself...you won't find happiness in being in my life, it would be a lie anyway. You are a stranger to me, and all the calls and visits in the world cannot change that now. I am an adult, a woman and a mother....and I became all of that in your absence. I can't become a daughter simply because you feel lonely right now.
