My feelings as of late have been accurately caricatured as my flattened body under a steamroller. I am going to be a little more graphic than that, and really this post is to serve one purpose. It may not succeed in that purpose, but I might at least feel better if I get this out of my system.
When you have a child, they are absolutely dependent on you, the parent. It can be heavenly, those first couple years that you tune your ears to those little cries and learn to respond with the correct action. A feeding and some burps later, you have these purely happy little eyes locked onto you, nourishing your soul.
When you have a kid, they are absolutely dependent on you, the parent. Things are different. The cries, though you know exactly what they mean, are intolerable. Layers of strange, often unidentifiable, feelings grow on them. They act out at strange times in strange ways. You have no idea how to get in to these layers. Daycare, counselors, and several articles on the topic often point to the parents first. Why would they do that? Because the children are absolutely dependent on you, the parent.
When you have a near-adult dependent, they are absolutely dependent on you, the parent. You say they are independent, and they sure act that way. However, by this point, most of what they know about the world is derived from your instruction and demonstration. They may bathe themselves, but as they do, they are still depending on you to have taught them how. It’s not even close to funny, as I was that kid. It took an embarrassing situation developing before someone finally instructed me on proper cleaning techniques. They interact with superiors and romantic partners the way they were shown. They approach work and recreation the way they saw you approach it. As they go forth in their lives, they are absolutely dependent on you, the parent, having given them what they need to be successful.
I’m independent. I have peeled layers of my identity from myself, as painful as I imagine peeling my very skin off would be. Those layers were layers of my parents’ creating. Rotten and moldy, these layers infect even the most robust and healthy bulbs with their negative outlook. Well, we are not onions stuck in the dirt, we are mobile and able to avoid contamination when we see it. As such, I keep my parents far enough away that I only hear once or twice per year from my sister that nothing has changed.
My dad is a drunk asshole. I could go into detail, but those two words paint the picture well enough for mention. My mother is who has been nagging my brain lately. Truth be told, I feel like I somehow wound up right back where my life as a teenager was. Broke beyond broke. Collection calls all day, every day of the week. The cabinets and fridge as barren as the bank accounts. Yet, somehow, there is so much crap laying around you can’t get into bed without stepping on things or stubbing your toe.
My mother should have divorced my dad long before she did. He was never home, we can all guess where he was sleeping, he broke more things in rage than he ever fixed. She just kept on in misery. She kept her children in misery with her. Misery was life, and I grew a layer to protect myself from the inevitable misery of the world. I was raised to believe the entire world, every last human in it, is miserable with evil. I don’t blame her for getting into that situation, but I absolutely hate her for not seeing the value in getting out of it. I blame her for wallowing in it and dousing herself and her kids in ever more negativity. She acted like a child having a fit in the mud in her Sunday best, everyone demanding she get out, while she defiantly plops a mud patty in her hair.
She floated around from job to job for a while before settling in to a job at the grocery store bakery. It was a great job, by almost all standards. My mom always had her qualms with this person or that schedule, but she stuck with it. One amazing perk of her job was automatic semi annual pay raises, usually no less than a quarter each time. After a few years, her paycheck was approaching substantial. The kind you could almost feed a family on. However, her job duties hadn’t changed. She still complained about grave shifts, that stupid manager they brought in from wherever, the gal buying a bag of weed on the clock, how she never gets time off… Finally, after about 5 years, her pay was far more than the company could justify for a production baker. The GM told her that she needed to take up the role of department manager. He explained how she would be on her own schedule, setting all the other baker’s schedules, being involved in the hiring process, have more room to grow her wages, save for retirement, more than the usual 2 weeks paid time off even. It was exactly what she, and her children needed.
She quit. I hate her for that. Like a rushing waterfall, my hurt and subsequent anger feels endless and uncontrollable. I have to peel this infected layer off, and it’s horrible. She may not have meant to, but she instilled the feeling in her children that they don’t deserve the best that life can offer. The layers are so deep and complex, that as I try to remove infected material, I inadvertently remove healthy parts on myself with it.
I suppose the final stab was the arrival of my son, which she fiercely avoided. I didn’t have a lot, but what I did have was a bunch of built up credit card points. It was enough to buy her a round trip flight. Baby was due around New Year, so I booked the flights as best I could to include Christmas, too. Well, plenty of noteworthy shitty things transpired in those two weeks. However, the punch line was when baby didn’t come before her return flight date. I had planned ahead, knowing that first babies often arrive late. I purchased a flex flight, so I was able to change the return flight date for only a small transfer fee. She wouldn’t do it. She made every excuse in the world not to stay for her grandchild coming into the world. The only thing I remember lighting my mother’s spirit was the prospect of a grandchild. Nobody was with mother and me for my son’s arrival. There was only mother’s best friend and my best friend checking in on us by phone. That fact alone sparked all kinds of negativity from both sides of the family. Everyone felt betrayed. Bonds began dissolving. I was left with little else for mental health than this little bundle of pure happiness. I can’t begin to tell you how shitty it feels to have grown up hearing her chime on about grandchildren only to be completely avoided for bringing such hoped for bundle into the world. I wasn’t worth her presence. This thing that I created, so sure of the amazing magnetism of pure delight and happiness to cure the negative, rotting emotions, was nothing that anyone was happy to see.
I still don’t understand it, and it sucks because somehow everything in my environment feels like my childhood right now. Minus the alcoholic rage, that is. It’s one of few things I can assure myself I’ve grown a healthy layer around. My life was stable just a few years back. I didn’t have an intimate partner and was getting drug through the worst of my divorce, but everything outside of that was peachy. My life was stable, my soul was nourished, my relationships were healthy and substantial. What the hell brought me back down to this substandard existence? How have I become the esoteric hermit again? How have all those friends fallen out of touch and the claustrophobic walls of social inaccessibility closed in again? I’m not 30 minutes away from the nearest convenience store in a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it town. I’m not oblivious to the use of a balance sheet. I just can’t break the toxic dynamics of my household and they are destroying it.
Yet again.
Goose's Roost 