Menu
I am starting to realize a pattern within myself. I crave stability because I never had it as a kid. Everything was always volatile. My step-dad always had these outbursts and didn't like noise because he worked nights and My Mom was always sad because she lost things I wasn't aware you could lose then, parts of yourself that you hide away. I was still a kid and I had hope even when I was a sick and stayed in bed for a year. They thought I had Lou Gehrig's disease or Leukemia but what I really had was childhood rheumatoid arthritis and secrets.
Secrets can actually cause physical pain. My secret was that I didn't want to live. I felt like a mistake. My Mother had gotten pregnant with me at a young age. There is a picture of her and my father. She had run away from home and lived with him and his family. She was 15 or looked like 15 and he looked like a criminal which is what he was. I have always believed I was the product of rape. My mother never said this but after spending time with my father and knowing how young she was that was all I could think. My Mother chose to have me; she had a miscarriage before me and a stillborn baby I didn't find out about until I was in my thirties. It made so much sense. She couldn't look at me when I was a child; it seemed to cause her pain. I didn't want to cause her pain. When my daughter was born, all I wanted for her was the stability that I never had. A hometown where everyone knew you who you were. It didn't work out that way. I made a lot of the same mistakes my own Mom did; I was just older. I didn't have any self-esteem. I married a man I met in a bar. In my defense, I knew I was going to marry him and have a child with him. I am "sensitive"; I know things I am not supposed to know and I see those who have passed on. I just kept it hidden for a very long time. I knew my daughter was going to be born at 2:00 a.m. on Halloween even thought she wasn't supposed to come until November 4th. I knew there was going to be significant complications that would put both our lives at risk. I had panic attacks and, although it turned out to be true, when it was happening I was calm because I felt her spirit and told her to hold on. She did. Things didn't work out for me and her dad. We aren't even in the same universe. I needed someone like me, sensitive, emotional. I have that now and I wouldn't have if that marriage with X hadn't dissolved. I had this idea of what the perfect childhood would be for my daughter and it was all about what I didn't have that I wanted so badly. Stability. A mother whose sole goal was to raise me. A hometown. A house she only left when leaving for college. It didn't happen and it is not happening and I feel like I have failed. I wanted to give her the childhood I longed for, but she doesn't want it. She doesn't read classic literature. She isn't an introvert. She doesn't want to live in my quiet lake side condo community that gives me the peace I never had growing up. Her dad has given me more grief than I have ever wanted but now she wants to live with him and his wife, who I am sure is the opposite of me, as much as my husband is the opposite of him. It is killing me. I put aside all my dreams to give her what I never had and she doesn't want it. She doesn't want me. I am not sure if it matters anymore that X was emotionally abusive and sometimes physical and made my life hell, You can't mix oil and water. Now that my daughter wants this other life where my full time job as a Mom is now just a weekend thing and she wants this other Mom who isn't like me, it hurts. It hurts a lot and it hurts even more that this was taken from me before I was ready, if one can ever really be ready for your only child to leave you. I can't help but think what I could have been and what I could be if I wasn't always thinking about how I should be, so she didn't turn out like me. My Mother didn't love herself either because men abused her just like they abused me. She couldn't dream for awhile and when she did, she traveled. She let go of raising a child that had animosity towards her for being a normal flawed human being. I survived but I needed her. I had my grandma and we got a long better as grandmas and granddaughters do. I just thought it wouldn't happen to me so soon and it wouldn't happen this soon because of a man that is my nemesis. I thought it would be Annabelle going off to college. I wanted to be one of those mothers. I went to live with my grandparents at 16 by my own choice. My stepfather kicked me down the stairs because I laughed too loud on the phone with my friend. It wasn't the worst thing he had done but it was the last straw. My baby wants to leave at 13 and I don't do shit like that. I get angry because she won't clean her room because she loves a man that made me want to kill myself because he took away my dreams for her. He took away my dream to give her the childhood I never had. She doesn't want it. She doesn't want me. I want to dream. I want happiness and not being tied down to how I should be. I want to travel and write and love my husband who is just like me and loves intensely and feels intensely. I keep having these nightmares that I am going to die. I am murdered. I find out I have cancer. I am on a bed surrounded by flowers, alive at my own wake. When I was sick as a child and they didn't know what I had. I heard my parents (who were like oil and water) talking about what it could be and I would research it by reading books on death. I thought I was dying from the age of 12-13; no one told me any different. I hated my life so much I accepted it and I was okay. I believed I wasn't supposed to be born. I am not sure that feeling has ever quite left me. I am at a crossroads. I don't want history to repeat itself. X is oil. I am water and his wife is probably oil. They don't communicate with me about Annabelle's health and It is hell because I want her childhood to be what I could never have. She wants hope and sunshine, and all this shit I can't give her because I have suffered and this past year with the plague and the last hurrah of decent humanity. She missed the same year of school as me when I was sick and thought I was dying. I survived. I survived without Zoom calls and Tik Tok and a disco roller rink set up because of boredom. I am worried it has taken this much of a toll on her and now she wants to move again after her Dad has moved her three times. I don't understand this world of sheltering children to the point where they don't understand reality or how to stay safe. There is no joy without knowing pain. You can't reflect on vapid tik tok videos. When she was born, all I could think about was the immense responsibility of keeping her safe and keeping her alive. She wants to live in a reality that isn't real and I am scared for her.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorMichelle Tinklepaugh Archives
June 2023
Categories |