amymay

When I was young my mother was the cool mom. I have to say I loved it. She let me have friends over and would make us cookies. She was the one you could tell your secrets to. She would protect me, encourage me, she was always on my side and in my corner. When I was a child she was the perfect mom.
It's funny now looking back how right and how wrong I was. There are so many memories that I can't see her face. It's just a black blur. I thought it was supposed to be like that. One night she would wake my friends and me up and take us out for ice-cream at 3am. The next night she would wake me up crying and we would spend the night at my grandparents. Or sit in the car in the parking lot of the town police station. I remember her voice telling me everything was ok she just had to go inside for a min. but I can't remember her eyes.
When I was 8 she finally got the nerve to leave my father for a while. I was so incredibly happy. We moved in town and I started to make friends. So did she I think. And then she turned 40. A few days later my father came to pick me up from school and I wouldn't go with him. I hated the man and would rather wait through reses (which on that day was going to be an hour with our heads down because the class had been bad.)Then go home with him. When I got back to our apartment he was sitting there. I asked where mom was and he told me she was in the hospital but was going to be ok. He explained that mom had taken a lot of pills to go to sleep. But it was too many. I was a smart kid. I knew what that meant. (She used to let me watch 20/20 and 60 min.) She tried to kill herself. When she came home she was crying. Kneeling down she told me she saw a picture of me and decided she couldn't leave me alone in the world. So she called my grandparents to take her to the hospital and get her stomach pumped. Shortly after that we moved back in with my father who continued to beat her and cheat on her and emotionally abuse both of us for another 5 or 6 years. I realized then that my mother was a wonderful care giver but couldn't take care of herself. I tried. I tried to take care of her. It worked through most of high school. She became my best friend and I hers. I was afraid if I strayed to far from her she would try to kill herself again. She never dated or went out. She stayed home and cleaned house when she wasn't working. Once a week would walk down the driveway and have dinner with my grandparents. Once a month (sometimes more) I would roll quarters from her coffee shop at work to make ends meet. When we were ok for a while the rolls of change would go to some ones doorstep that wasn't doing ok. Looking back I was surrounded by poverty. (My grandparents washed out their baggies and used napkins twice) But I always saw myself as middle class. My mother was the type that would use her last $50.00 to take us to a fancy seafood dinner. We would get all dressed up. And she would do my hair and make up. We would eat and come home with videos. I think she tried to hide how bad off we were but I always knew. I just thought everyone was like us. There were winter nights that we would sleep in several layers because we couldn't afford to fill the propane tank. She would beg me to go to my grandparents but I wouldn't leave her side. She was the strongest women I knew. One morning I woke up to the sound of a sledge hammer going through a wall. I walked out and there she was with a big smile from ear to ear. By the end of the second year we had redone our kitchen and moved three walls. All with no help from any man- Just us. She could and would do whatever it took to get her way. But looking back I don't think she was ever. Happy. Or content for that matter. I don't think she was ever at peace with our life. Maybe that's why she was constantly changing things.
When I moved out after graduation she went through some kind of midlife crisis. She started bartending at a local dive and drinking far more then I ever had seen. I was afraid for her and knew she was doing it because I wasn't there for her to take care off. (To her taking care of someone else gave her meaning and purpose.) She dated one man after another. I hated coming back to Wolcott because I hated seeing what she had become. A year after I moved out she announced (at my going away to school party she insisted on throwing me) that she was getting married to the man she had been dating for two months. I spent the first two months of college trying to talk since in to her head. He wasn't a good guy let alone the type I wanted my mother to marry. His name was George and he was a hick. They set the date for Halloween but the closer the wedding came the less he would commit to things like a place or decorations. Mom finally realized he had been using her for a place to live and home cooked food. She told me it was called off just in time for me to not completely fail out of school. When she picked me up to go home for thanksgiving break she went to someone else's house. She introduced me to Wayne, and explained that she had been pretty much living with him for the past three weeks. Even though out house was out of fuel again I refused to stay with them. Again I tried to talk her out of things but this time it didn't work. After a year or living with each other they got married in my grandmother's hospital room. (Even though she didn't approve of him) I got very drunk that day. Wayne is much better then George or my father but he still isn't right for my mom. She's become angry and bitter since they have been married. She never smiles. She's started to hit out of frustration. She raised me to be a lady but she isn't anymore. She manipulates and guilt's everyone in to doing things her way. But she is so naive she doesn't see what she does. I love her to death but some times I wonder what happened to her. She took care of my grandparents for a year before they passed away. I think seeing them go was the final straw for her sanity. She's a shell of the women I grew up with. Or perhaps as I get older I see her flaws more then I used to.

Wayne is a man with a boy's mentality. She loves him because she is useful for him. She can take care of him. He has emaphazima and CO??, which just landed him in the hospital a week or so ago. Because of this he's on prednisone and he's quitting smoking at the same time.

I came to see them to make them happy and take some stress off mom. I thought by surprising her all other worries would seem to disappear. It didn't work. She cried out of joy when she saw me but then continued to bitch about Wayne and how he had been treating her. She was angry because he didn't put a "patch" on. For hours and hours this went on. Granted he deserved some of it. But the idea that I had crossed the country to see her didn't even make her smile. I thought the next day would be better because he was more normal and was wearing a patch. But she seemed to be waiting the entire day for him to say one thing wrong. It finally happened after dinner and she took the opportunity to yell some more. I spent most of my time this weekend reading- trying to hide from her glares. I wanted to cry at how unhappy she was. But I did cry for how unhappy she made herself.
I'm terrified of becoming her.