I sit here today as a 38 year old wife and mom. I sit here today blessed beyond measure. But I also sit here today wondering why a part of me doesn't feel whole.
The road to this very moment wasn't an easy road. It was full of pot holes and detours. It was often a dark road running through a dense and forbidding forest. Yet I found the light several times only to be lost again to the tangled mess of the past.
I am forgiven, this I know for the Bible tells me so. I have accepted Jesus Christ into my heart and know that he died on the cross for my sins. I know that I often cause him great grief because it is so hard for me to stay on the path, to fight the darkness, to cling to the light. An admission I am sure many of you would be surprised by. But first and foremost we must all admit that we are sinners and then beg for forgiveness and promise to repent.
Somewhere along the way to adulthood, so far back that I can't remember the why or how, I lost the love of my mother. Not because she passed on, but because she couldn't love herself let alone a child. Am I bitter? Maybe a little, some days more than others. Mostly I am sad. Sad because no matter how hard I try to move beyond the chasm of distrust, no matter how many I times I forgive, I am still pushed away. I am not sure what I am to her.
My dream has always been to have the perfect family. Of course that is a fantasy. But I do remember as a child seeing how other moms treated their kids and yearning for that same thing. I knew my mom was different, but as a child I didn't understand the why of it. As a teenager it served as a great embarrassment.
I grew into a bitter teenager. I grew into a young lady that was manipulative and combative and selfish and even very self centered. As long as I didn't look into a mirror I could believe that I was beautiful. But I was obsessive too. I wanted a boyfriend like all my friends had. The problem was that the boys never looked at me like I was worth their time. They never asked me to the movies. I had a few boyfriends along the way, but they weren't what I was searching for.
Most of my younger years were spent looking for the "happily ever after" The prince that would swoop in and take me away from my horrible life and put me up in a castle. I wanted to be rich like the movie stars. I wanted to buy everything I saw that I liked and never have to worry about running out of money. Naturally that was before I married my husband and my three beautiful children.
I don't have the entire fantasy, but I have enough of it that I am satisfied. I am confident that we could loose it all today and as long as I have my husband and kids I will still be rich. I believe I am at this point in my life because it is God's Will. I have prayed hard, stepped out on faith, cried for forgiveness not just from God, but from my mom, my sister, my Dad, my oldest son, people I may have wronged and my husband.
It drives me crazy when I hear people say "leave the past in the past" "you can't start a new chapter if you are still reading the last chapter" But I wonder have these people ever really went through hell on earth and survived? When you can still hear the hate dripping from the angry words, when you can close your eyes and still feel the hands of your mother around your neck, when you can still see the day on the track field in 7th grade that a group of kids cornered you and made fun of you because you have a black head, and worse you don't even know what that is. Yes it is all in the past. But I can still see these people from high school, I can still hear them taunting me. It goes all the way to elementary school.
It wasn't the worst childhood ever, but it wasn't the best either. I feared rejection, I was afraid to stand out. I missed a lot of opportunities along the way because of fear instilled in me from my mother and the taunts of my peers. There were times where I hated my mother because she put me in situations that would make others single me out. Jumpsuits that zipped from my navel to my neck and no shirt underneath. Huge ugly puff coats, not teaching me how to properly care for myself as a young lady. Not wanting to listen to me when I cried because the kids were so mean. Try being the child of a parent that crosses a picket line in a small town. Try understanding that your peers make fun of you not only because you are a new kid in town, but your parent is working and crossing a picket line, while their parent is on strike.
I was a horrible big sister. I was never nice to my little sister, not unless it please me. Why? Why was I like this? First of all our mother doted on her more than me. Second of all I needed an outlet, I needed a place to vent. Isn't that what my mother taught me? She taught me that when something goes wrong in your day that you lash out a the closest person to you. I wish I could change the way to my sister. I wish so badly that we could finally be best friends, that the coldness toward each other would thaw into warmth. I wish we could both be caring and empathetic individuals, but we are not.
Most of my adult life I have spent praying and begging for forgiveness. I have heard it so many times that I am forgiving and that should make me be able to walk away from all that hurt me. That now it is buried in the sand. But for me it is not. It is like the elephant in the room. I see it nearly every day. If something goes wrong I know it is my fault. I know I screwed up. I know that I am not a good mom, I fail as a wife sometimes. Yep, it is all my fault. After all, my mother drilled that into my head. She made sure that I understood that at all things I was a failure, a no good, dirty (insert expletive) She made sure that I knew that my dad loved me more than her, she made sure my sister understood that he loved me more than her.
Somewhere along the way she changed tactics. I guess it was around the time I was beginning to rebel, to fight back. She could hit me, but I would hit back. She could call me bad names, but I could call her them too. I began to butt heads with my dad. I was desperate to fit in. To dress in labels like all the popular kids. I couldn't do my hair and make up like them because I never had a mom who did those things. Instead if I wore make up I was a w---e. I wanted to hang out with the bad kids, they had more fun. They understood where I was coming from. My dad wanted me to apply myself, he wanted me to do good in school. He wanted me to act right and not to embarrass him. But I was a spiteful girl and I did none of those things. I refused to take classes if they weren't the same ones my friends were taking. I refused to play sports because only popular preppy kids did that. I refused to go to pep rallies. I enjoyed being in study hall with my friends during the pep rallies because we were all black instead of school colors.
My mom seized on this moment. She began to make sure I knew that all men only wanted one thing from women. She told me that it was all my dad's fault that I couldn't go where I wanted, or do what I wanted or wear what I wanted. No labels for me because my dad was too cheap to buy them. So I began to lie to him. I made up school assemblies and projects, whatever it took to get extra money from him. After all my mom did it too, so it must be okay.
I grew into this not so nice young woman and I found a person I thought was my happily ever after. I moved out, the main reason being because my mom wanted $200 in rent a week because my fast food salary was hurting her welfare income. So I moved in with this guy I would later marry and then be divorced all under two years. Freedom again. But when I turned to my mother for support she had none to give. When I turned to my dad he tried to be supportive, but he really didn't know how. He didn't know how bad I was hurting. He didn't understand that I just needed a shoulder to cry on. And being the kind father he was, he didn't know how to say know and that led us into a very tumultuous time. For years I resented him for all that was wrong in my life. I resented him because I didn't know how to be an adult. I couldn't support myself because I was still trying to fit in. The truck my dad signed for that I was driving was a testament to that. I had absolutely no concept on how to save money, how to pay bills before anything else. All I wanted was to be cool, to fit in, and most importantly to be loved.
I made so many mistakes from 1997-2007. It took me far too long to grow up. I hurt and used so many people during that time. I pray they have all forgiven me.
After my mother and I had lived together for four years, we were no longer even remotely able to stand the site of each other. I resented her as much as she resented me. Maybe this is when the true dislike and distrust started? She saw my ugly side and I saw hers. We slung hurtful words at each other every chance we got. She stabbed me in the back I stabbed her in the back. The bad thing is that my oldest son lived with us during this time. He was just about to turn three when we moved in with her. She started telling him he didn't have to listen to me. She started letting him do things I didn't, she also started doing things I asked him to do, like pick up toys.
She lost even more respect for me because this was the time I drank the heaviest. I partied all of the time. She always watched him and never said no, even though looking back on it, I know that she should have said not pretty much every time. Yep, I was not a good mommy back then. I was drowning in my sorrows and shame and still trying to fit in.
I saw myself as one bad-_ _ _ B word. I thought I was hot and everyone wanted me. Whew, I was a mess. So thankful that I was able to climb out of that pit before I got stuck there forever. The thing was, I was projecting myself as the exact opposite of what I really was and wanted. Yep, a real hot mess.
The end result was my mom and I now hated each other. I guess she began to fear me. Maybe she saw me as a threat and she has never moved beyond this. I was not nice, nor do I claim that I was. Sometimes we had fun. Sometimes we went to the mall, the park, the pool, but most of the time we avoided each other. I didn't agree with her habits the same way she didn't agree with mine. I scorned her, shamed her, ridiculed her, but then she moved.
At first it was a blessing. At first I was so glad that she was gone. But then I began to miss her. When I would go visit her she wasn't herself. More quiet more reserved. She didn't want to talk to me. Over the years it got to where I would make the 8 hour drive and visit her and within two days I would be back home. Visiting her was like suffocating. I couldn't breathe. The friction between us was almost visible.
And now here we are. I am at a point in my life where I want her. I really need her. But she doesn't want me and she doesn't need me. She is independent, but alone. I feel sad for her, and I want to reach out to her, but I can't. Whatever transpired between us has put us on opposite cliffs and the distance between us is too great. She is on the eve of a new beginning, but even as I write this I realize that new beginning won't and can't include my sister and I. She needs to finally be free. Free of the past and the pain and the hurt.
I have lately been feeling so rejected, but even as I write this, I realize that I helped to create this distance and that it will take a true miracle of God to heal the gaping wounds that her and my sister and I have. It has always disturbed me when I needed to buy a Mother's Day card because they say some of the most fake stuff ever. I cringe as I pick and read through each card and pick the least of the sappy to send to her. I guess that this will be our relationship for the rest of our years.
I am always told to love your mother, the Bible even tells us to do this. But these people don't understand what I went through. What she called me, how she hit me all of the time. How she blamed me for everything wrong with the world. They don't realize that the shame she put inside of me, is still there like black mold. It will never go away. And as revenge I made her hurt too. I put her down, I made her feel like the nothing she made me feel. That can never be undone. Forgive, yes, I have forgiven, but I haven't forgotten. The demons that hunt me down chase me sometimes from my dreams other times from the shadows. I tried therapy a couple of times, but it just didn't work. It didn't answer my questions, it didn't erase the guilt and shame, it didn't polish the dull brass with a new finish. Instead it left me with more questions.
I love the song Amazing Grace. I love how it starts out about being blind but then you see, and then goes on to say I was lost but now am found. Only parts of me have been found. I fear that the bigger part of me is still lost. I cringe when I see the question "If you die today where would you go" I don't know, I really don't. Because according to the Church of God I am a back slider and I do not have doves eyes and I do not only listen to Christian music or strongly filter what I watch. But then the Baptist would agree with some of that too, but according to them that night at the Dickson First Assembly of God where I gave my life to Christ means that I am saved and I just need to repent of my sins and I will be okay.
But overall, I have found a sort of happiness, I have found things that make my heart sing. I do read my Bible on occasion and I do attend church most Sundays. I don't have any works to show though not unless you count my endless amounts of kindness toward those who are less than deserving.
Just pray for me, that's all that I ask, pray for me
John 3:16 For God so loved the world that he gave his only begot ton son, that whosoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
