untitled.

Whether or not you agree with trigger warnings, I'm including them here because they are directly mentioned -- physical abuse, drug use are mentioned. 

Someday, my mother will die, and I will cry.

I have as many flaws as the next person, and my inability to just accept things is probably one of my worst. I cannot accept anything. I ask questions, I over-analyze, I critique, I reconsider, I argue. I build anxiety within myself, throwing around the simplest of ideas over and over and over like churning butter until the next subject comes along that catches my attention.

And then I abandon the previous. It may lay there for weeks, months, years, discarded into the wind. It may never be revisited, just laying there. A shell of perfection, a stroke of brilliance that burned into the night as if it were a shooting star would fly across the sky. As quickly, too.

I got cheated out of a mother, or maybe out of a grandmother, because my grandmother was my mother in every way except biologically. My grandmother, bless her soul, raised her children the best she could manage, and then when her baby was still just a baby, she had a baby and my grandmother raised her, too.

But this isn't about my grandmother, there is not a sonnet so lovely, a psalm so sacred that would do her justice; William Wordsworth himself would not have the words worthy of the praise that my grandparents deserve.

No, this is about my mother.

Society has such a value on the bond between woman and her child, there are books and jewelry and songs and movies and when you're six years old and the person you call, "Mama" won't even open the door to visit you after your grandmother has driven you fifty miles to see her, standing on the front step of the rundown shack that she calls a home and she won't even open her door to you, it surrounds you and surrounds you and builds and builds and crashes into you and YOU FALL.

Standing on the front step of the rundown shack she calls a home and hearing your baby brother cry from the other side of the heavy wooden door because he's too little to reach the chain to unlock it and he wants to see his Nana and his sister because he knows they brought something to eat. Watching your one hundred twenty pound granny pounding on the door with a piece of who-knows-what she found in the front yard yelling her daughter's name through the cracks of light between the door and the frame to try and wake her from whatever drug-induced stupor she may be in. This was my reality.

At six years old, you don't know why. You don't even know to ask why. It's just empty.

I never had a father and I never really longed for one; my grandfather's presence was enough for both. And my grandmother filled the role of mother in every way except biologically, but then once or twice a month when I saw my "real" mother, my mind would cloud, the question would arise, which one is actually my real mother? Even before puberty, I was already debating the roles of mom versus mother. Life-giver versus care-giver.

My entire childhood, this question bounced off the walls of my brain, tumbling and turning, rearing its ugly head over and over again, and as my knowledge grew, my logic grew, this question, this goddamned question  - I could not answer it. It's resolution would put my emotions to rest, and like I said earlier, I cannot accept anything. I ask questions, I over-analyze, I critique, I reconsider.

Until one day, the fog cleared. Maybe it was the pain in my grandmother's eyes when the love of her life, the man who was man enough to be my dad and my Pawpaw, died. Maybe it was the whirlwind of drama that followed, my mother's refusal to step up and mother her children, instead letting me, her teenage daughter drop out of college and take them in. Maybe it was her allowing her new boyfriend to physically assault my little sister in front of my baby niece; not just allowing but defending him afterward because, "she had it coming". WHAT?

I just know that one day, all of the churning and turning and whirling and cranking of the gears and gadgets inside of this convoluted brain finally clicked into place. I have a mother, I call her my grandmother, and then I have a stranger of a woman who never gave a damn enough to try.

There are so many experiences that I notice while raising my daughter that most parents who have completely functioning normal-meters probably don't even think twice about. Raising my headstrong, fierce, fucking beautiful two year old gives me more appreciation for my granny with every passing day. When I kiss her imaginary boo-boo for the fifth time in five minutes, I know that my mother chose to forgo that memory with me. When I cut her grapes into fourths and call her to the table for a snack, I know that my mother chose to forgo that memory with me. When I rock her until I feel her little puffs of breath against my neck that lets me know she's asleep, even though she's so big now that her head rests on my shoulder and her legs dangle in what has to be the most uncomfortable position ever and my arm muscle is cramping but she doesn't care and I don't care because my heart is filling to the brim, I know that my mother chose to forgo that memory with me.

My mother made me a better mother. I spent my adolescence determined to prove that I would not become her and now I'm living the life she could have had but turned away from. I will be the mother to my daughter that my grandmother was to me and my mother will live her life in denial that she ever did a damn thing wrong. I will be at every class party, every blistering cold ball game, every haircut, every class play, and I may not be my daughter's best friend but I will certainly be there for her because that is what mothers do.

My mother is a stranger to my daughter just as much as her daughter is a stranger to her. I will protect my child from my mother, not because she is some sort of violent offender or criminal of law, but because she is as fleeting as a whistle into the night.

I suppose that in some ways, I am a lot like my mother. I cannot accept a notion; I must dwell on it over and over and over like churning butter until the next subject comes along that catches my attention and then I abandon the previous. My mother's attempts to build a relationship with me go much the same way. A shell of perfection, a stroke of brilliance that burned into the night as if it were a shooting star would fly across the sky. As quickly, too.

I got cheated out of a mother, or maybe out of a grandmother, because my grandmother was my mother in every way except biologically. But this isn't about my grandmother.

No, this is about my mother.

Someday, my mother will die, and I will cry. I will cry, not over the loss of the person, but rather the loss of opportunity. 

Because you see, I have as many flaws as the next person, and my inability to just accept things is probably one of my worst. Deep down, underneath all of the hurt and the pain and layers of dysfunction and anger and disgust and betrayal, there is still that six year old girl standing on the front step of the rundown shack, waiting for a sign that there's someone inside who might come and let me in.