old shoes

yesterday i spent part of the day with my mother. lately it's become increasing difficult for me to visit with her. i find that i am no longer comfortable making small talk. i just ask her what she needs, because she always needs. making only a minimal effort, doing only a fraction of what i use to do for her. i just don't have it in me any longer to take care of her.

morally i am conflicted by this. i want to take care of her. just because she was a horrible mother doesn't mean i have to be a horrible daughter. children are suppose to take care of their parents in the latter part of their lives. it's part of the life cycle. but she's only 65. she's to young to be this old.

God help me.
i can't get past it. i can't get over it. i can't go around it. it's just there, like the berlin wall, it needs to come down. i don't know what to say to her or how to say it. am i bold enough to speak the ugly truth.

she has never accepted any responsibility for my childhood abuse. because she was a battered wife, brutally abused by her husband, she classified herself as a victim. i remember having conversations with her when i was a small child, trying to comfort her, telling her not to worry, when i grew up, i would take care of her.

now my mother is in the early stages of Alzheimer's.
now that she honestly and truly needs me to take care of her, i just don't think i can do it.

it would be okay if she was only remembering her life, her childhood memories, but she is not.
she's like a walking detonator, every time she opens her mouth, she sets off an emotional bomb inside of me.

i survived my childhood, you know. i lived through it. i was proud of myself for that. no matter what was said or what was done to break me, i survived and i didn't break.

i grew up, i got married and raised my children the way i wanted to be raised. and i'd have given up my life and my soul to protect my babies, my beautiful children, anything to provide them with a happy, healthy, abuse free environment to grow up in.

isn't it basic human nature to want to provide better for your children than what was provided for you?

now, here i sit, staring into my mother's glazed eyes, with her child-like expression, flashing back to the past, and worrying about the near future. Her mind will slowly fade away. if i don't ask my questions now i'll never be able to. i doubt she will be honest. it's not in her nature to accept responsibility for the choices she has made.

for my entire life i could hear her voice ringing in my ears, "don't judge, put yourself in my shoes..."

so here i am, just like a good little girl, sifting through the dust and debris, searching that closet full of skeletons for my mother's old shoes.

i wonder if she ever thought to try on a pair of my sister's or mine?

20 years to life...

i had to replace my dvr yesterday. ever since hurricane ike it has been humming all day and all night long. it would have been alright but the pitch was off. i like music but this was just noise. So as much as i hated to do it, i sat in the car and waited while my husband stood in line for an hour at our local cable company for a new box.

well, once you get the thing home, a new box means you have to go through the entire ordeal of reprogramming all your favorites.
right, so again, more waiting...

anywho, it was finally my turn for the remote. i'm going through the guide, searching for my shows; bones, fringe, csi, dexter, chuck, etc...
you know the drill. it does take a bit of time. well, while i was scrolling through the menus my husband became involved in this show; intervention. i've seen a few episodes of this program before, watched it with my son, didn't care for it much.
but it was too late for me to flip the channel.

it started out ok, some young guy, wealthy parents, he drank too much...
but the second story was horrific. a beautiful young woman in pre-law, great gpa, brilliant future ahead, hooked up with the wrong guy and started using inhalants.

i knew the story. i knew the 'why' before the narrator finished the introductions. the family photos gave it away, plus the long list of her symptoms. drug abuse, loose reckless relationships with older men, she was a cutter....

i knew in those first few minutes of the program that i should have just gotten up and walked away. i should have gone into my room, taken a shower, gotten ready for bed. something, anything other than to just sit there and watch this young woman's story on what led her down the path to rock bottom.
i knew, fuck me, i knew.
so, why did i sit and watch her?

as usual, i had to prove to myself i was strong. i had to know i could sit and watch some stranger dealing with similar issues i've been struggling to overcome my entire life.
i refused to crumble, i didn't break, and i only allowed two maybe three tears to escape throughout the entire story. bully for me.
it was horrific.
all the shit i remember. comparing the strangers life and family to mine. comparing her sisters to mine. her relationships to mine. at one point in the show i wanted to scream at the woman for being so weak.

which is absolutely heartless of me.

but i understood completely, i knew why she chose to exist the way she was.
after all, it could have been me.
i could have been a drug addicted, rage filled, mother hating, self abusive cutter, sugar daddy boarder-line hooker girl.
that would have been easy, to fall into that lifestyle, let myself drop to the ground, kicking and screaming, and just give up on everything.
i fight that feeling all the time.
i'm still fighting it.
i want drugs, now, today.
just give me any fucking thing to make the memories go away.
but i can't.
i'm to old and fat to become an drug addicted hooker now. i let myself go. don't have that hot body i once had.

besides, what would my future grandchildren think?

see, that attitude has been both my blessing and my curse. i have worried endless what the world would think, say, react, and or respond to my words and actions.

guilt
shame
the ugly truth

the young woman on intervention, she was sexually molested as a child by a male family member. she watched her sister being molested by the same male relative. she told her mother. her mother didn't believe her at first. she told her grandmother , her uncle, enough family members until the secret was out. they went through a long ugly court trail. they lost. the male family member walked away clean. the trial divided the family, half believed the children, half did not. they never said who the male was, probable could not legally say on national television. the little girls grew up and became the stars of an episode on intervention.

why is it that the abuser walks away to abuse another day while the child victim is sentenced 20 years to life...

today

Who can really say what happened. i know i can't. i thought i found an old blog of mine, instead i created a new one. that's just part of being middle aged. i'm not so old i can't figure out certain high tech gizmos but i'm old enough that i need a ten year old to translate everything for me. so i guess the name of my new blog page is " a new day" ? not exactly what i wanted but oh, well. it's not too bad. sorry Celine, didn't pick that on purpose.

my life is changing, as most tend to do. i guess i've been feeling funky about the new transitions. i've always sorted out my feeling, worked out my issues by writing things down on paper. something about the process helps me heal.
so...
fyi. i can't spell, type and my grammer would make any 1st grade english teacher pull a few blue hairs out of her beehive.
maybe this will be interesting reading, maybe not.
read me, don't read me.
i don't give a fuck.
i'm just writing to drain my brain about issues i never speak aloud.

if i can figure out how, i'm going to rename my blog.