This is going to be a deep, dark, ugly truthful post. So if you think I'm sunny and funny and you like to read about the funny things dogs and husbands and six-year-olds do, you should stop reading now.
I just got off the phone with my mother. I usually try to text her or e-mail her so I don't have to actually speak to her. I don't know if it's her insanity or her disease, but having conversations with her is very, very difficult. I usually find something else to do while I talk to her because she will go off on a tangent and while I'm waiting for her to finish or come to a point, I need something to do. I opened my Solitaire game before I dialed her number.
That's not completely fair. In her defense, I have seen her brain. Her neurologist showed me her MRI. Remember how the guy on Quantum Leap always complained that the space-time travel was making his brain like Swiss cheese? My mother's brain is literally like Swiss cheese. The plaques that the disease multiple sclerosis leaves on her brain make looking at her brain like looking at a polka-dotted piece of fabric. But, enough neurons seem to be firing to allow her to be mean and still alive, so...there you go. (Wait, was that a tangent? Is my brain Swiss cheesing?)
Anyway, in today's conversation, I learned that Fred*, the husband of mom's BFF from high school, Fiona,* died. Like I care. (I called to let her know I would come over later to look at her computer.) Mom is writing a letter to their daughter, Jennifer, recounting the evening when Fiona met Fred. That seems sweet, I guess, if you ignore the fact that Fred left Fiona in an ugly and public way for another woman at least 15 years ago. But rather than put energy into mentioning that, I said, "That's nice," and put the red queen on the black king.
"Fiona was with me when I met your daddy, too, but I won't tell Jennifer that story," she said. Yeah, I said, happy to uncover the ace of hearts. And, then, she launched into the story. Of when my parents met. Like I want to hear the story of the entrance of the sorry man who would come to stain both our lives with his alcoholism, his addiction to porn, his sexual abuse of me, his sexual abuse of my aunts, and his philandering. The man whose caprices she allowed so that I had no college fund and she had to work her ass off to keep food on the table. But, by following his dreams, he was able to "be his own boss." Loosely translated, that means he had a broken down radiator repair shop where he could drink and smoke his days away and not even be bothered by silly things like customers. But, again, I digress.
I have told my mother repeatedly that I do not want to hear happy tales about my father. There are no happy tales, as far as I'm concerned. She stubbornly refuses to stop. She says, "He lived. He existed. I can't just pretend he didn't exist. And, we had happy times."
Really? Yeah, I guess we were happy when I was really little. Oh, but then I remember that she had already caught him peeping at her sister Nancy while she changed clothes. I just found this out a few years ago. She already knew things were not right when I was a year old! And she stayed! She said she thought it would get better.
I guess we were happy that summer my uncle and aunt (my mother's littlest brother and baby sister Susan) came to stay with us. Oh, except that he started sneaking into Susan's room to fondle her and "catching" her in the bathtub. Which, again, she knew about at the time and she didn't leave! Or call the police! Yeah, I just found this out a few years ago, too.
So were those the happy times? Or how about when he finally started targeting me? Was it ever happy after that? Don't answer that. Because I'm afraid I won't be able to control my reaction.
I'm thinking all this while I'm waving the phone away from my ear. I don't want to know the story, but I do want to catch when she finishes her story so I can say, "Yeah." 'Cos I'd hate to hurt her feelings by making her think I didn't listen. What is wrong with me, people?
After I managed to be monosyllabic enough to get her off the phone, I texted my BFF. I said that sitting through one of my mother's stories is so painful that, "It's like an assault." And then I realized...it *is* an assault. It's the only thing she can do to me. She's angry about the fact that I avoid her and ignore her and I'm moving and Lord only knows what else, so she punches me with her words. My God. I have got to save me.
My shrink and all of my friends and my husband--in other words, people who genuinely love me--want me to walk away. Just walk away and change my phone number. My mother hints that there are family members who think that I am terrible for how I behave toward her--I don't call, I don't write. I have yet to slap her, even though when she tells me I've gained so much weight I "don't look like yourself anymore" I do imagine it. I have decided that I really don't give a shit what they think.
But why not walk away? Well, as my friend Ashley told me, "You're better than that." Yes, I guess that's it. But then I wonder if I'm just acting out my mother's martyrdom. I learned from the best.
God, I would love to walk away. I've walked away before. The only reason we still talk is because after a blessed year of not having her in my life, she called. She had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. And I didn't think it was right to not be there for her.
What I didn't know is that the woman who repeatedly told me to "buck up" during my childhood, would not buck up. Only for a short time did she take the treatments that would have slowed progression of the disease. It was too much trouble to ask my flaky aunt to give her the shots, the shots hurt, they made bumps under her skin...there were a million excuses. So her disease progressed rapidly and when I realized she had no qualms about asking me to wipe her ass, well, that's when I said, oh, no. I ain't doin' that.
I didn't know that she wouldn't take any steps to lessen the impact of her disease on herself or me. I won't go into that because you don't need to hear about my mother's bowel and bladder problems and her hemorrhoids. But, take my word for it, she won't take care of what can be taken care of because, well, I don't know why. That's the part of the story where she bursts into tears and says, "I can't talk about it."
When I stopped coming to her place every day and made sure she had attendants to service her, oddly enough, she was able to wipe her own ass. Funny how that works. Yeah, she had me coming over to her house every day because her wound care physician was a male and while she liked him well enough, she didn't want to be left alone with him. She wanted me to protect her. I don't think she ever understood why that pissed me off beyond belief.
So, I'm at a crossroads. I could walk away. I could leave her to her own devices. Alienate my family, yes, but live without ever hearing another story about my father. Is that a change I'm willing to make? A risk I'm willing to take? I'm thinking about it.
*Names here are changed to protect the innocent.
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