Hera's Daughters (original) (raw)
[X-posted from my LJ, because I remember there was a recent post by fyrefly requesting input from members about what we're all dealing with to share and support one another and though I didn't have time at the time to respond like I wanted, the following came up yesterday and I thought others might benefit from it.]
Yesterday, I sent out a mass email to our Hallway mailing list (for our website and online newsletter) and, since it's been a few months since I last did this, I got my usual returned undeliverable on a couple of people who've dropped email addresses or moved or whatever since then. It happens, especially when I drop my usual monthly routine and the people in question aren't as close -- either relationship-wise or distance-wise -- to include me on their "must notify" list when this information changes. Such is life.
One of the addresses, however, was my mother's. Which means that other than calling her (a last resort option for various reasons), I don't have a way to immediately get in touch with her. Which isn't to say I can't get in touch with her by other means -- I've got her mailing address and if necessary, I could always contact her through family. Still, call me crazy (and believe me, I've got the genes for it), but I think that when you change email addresses, even if you're not an email fanatic, you might maybe possibly should let your daughter know that hey, gots myself a new address, thought you might need to know, case you're feelin' all wordy and wanna write me or sumthin. I'm just funny that way. And though this is part of a history between us and an illness she's been battling years, I have to wonder: what's so inherently unloveable or utterly forgettable about me, that my own mother could so easily choose not to (or forget to) stay in touch with her only daughter?
I don't mean this in a "oh, woe is me, nobody likes me, everybody hates me, guess I'll go eat worms" kind of way. This is hardly the first time this has happened and in comparison, is a small thing. And my mother is bipolar, so it's hardly unexpected, considering her illness. But bipolar does not mean Alzheimer's and being introspective by nature, I think it's probably normal to be wondering about this.
I stopped speaking to her in December 2003 and with the exception of the phone call I made to her this last Christmas, we haven't spoken since. Four months before the Official Not Speaking To Each Other Extravaganza, my mother sold her house, moved into a new one, disconnected her landline, and got a different cell phone number...and told me none of this. I had no idea until that Thanksgiving (2003) when I called to wish her Happy Thanksgiving and got "phone disconnected" messages. You haven't lived until you've spent your Thanksgiving holiday trying desperately to locate your mother from 1500 miles away. And then, when you finally DO hear from her (3 days later), she acts completely nonchalant about it, like you're some kind of OCD paranoid control freak stalker person. It's not much of an exaggeration that she had a complete teenager "hey man, don't harsh my buzz" reaction to my reaction, complete with three choruses of "I just forgot, geez, chill!" and the special extended stanza of "God, what are you, my mother? I don't have to ask your permission for everything I do." Surreal doesn't cover it.
It's been a struggle for me since then, though I'm doing better with it a year later than I expected. I didn't hit the bottom of my reaction to the whole thing until early last summer, when the last of my family on her side (the side of the family I just happen to be very close to) pulled away from me in response to her demands that they choose between us (ugh...when did my life become an episode of Dynasty?), and they did, and I'm out. Which, by the way, was the impetus for starting my LJ.
So it's happened before. This tenuous contact is now gone and once again she doesn't feel it necessary to let me know. Couldn't so much as drop me an email: "Changed my email address, here's the new one" or, "not using the computer much, decided to drop my internet service; just an FYI". Or, if she's mad about something I did or didn't didn't do, she didn't have the respect to tell me why. Instead, I get this returned undeliverable virtual rejection. Wow, that's...classy.
I don't know what it is. Her bipolar, sure. That's got to be some of it. I've dealt with this for 32 years now, though, and I just know it's not all because of that. She's told me on several occasions that I trigger some of her bipolar reactions, though she's never been able to explain how or why. I don't know that she was trying to blame me for this supposed triggering ability that I have (it's like superpowers! except without the cool costumes), but she's used that as a justification in the past for why she wouldn't talk to me for long periods, or why she couldn't discuss something with me that needed resolution (and would've provided some closure for at least one of us). Personally, I think it was an excuse to avoid the hard work that relationships sometimes require, but whatever.
I'm not taking it as hard as I did last year. Last year, I mulled it over from every conceivable angle, dissected and analyzed and evaluated during pretty much every moment my mind wasn't otherwise occupied. For months. Which made me feel a little bit bipolar, I have to say, because one of the symptoms is that when you're in a manic phase, your brain just will not. shut. up. I had this internal dialogue for, I'm not kidding, months about the situation, replaying the conversations over and over and wondering what the hell I'd done. I felt orphaned, in a way, because my brother and I already weren't speaking at that point, and now my mom, and of course the divorce with my stepdad (which also, apparently, meant a divorce from me, too, because I haven't heard from him since). And, as I said, the whole Dynasty-esque choosing up of sides amongst family. Or rather, "side", since it seems there was only one side on this issue and I wasn't on it.
But this year, things are different. I'm different. For one thing, my decision to pull away the last vestiges of whatever part of me was still rooted with my family and the place I grew up has been, on the whole, a success. I finally stepped the rest of the way into the new life I started for myself when we moved out here 4 years ago, like finally stepping all the way through the door and shutting it firmly behind me. I've let myself give up the job I had for so long of being the mother to my mother, the caretaker and nurturer and worrier and cheerleader. It's not a job I ever wanted or should've had, it was just the one I got assigned and stayed in because I thought I had to. Well, I did have to, but I could've quit before I did..
I also started building my own...not family, per se, but just something, a network of friends and acquaintances and neighbors and people I care about, whatever. I don't have a name for it, really, but it doesn't really need one. I'm not a terribly social person, and I like to be alone more often than is probably good for me, but I've managed to reconcile that part of myself with meeting new people, doing new things, and being involved in life. Which I've always done, but not as consciously as I have this last year or so. Go me, I'm high on life, woot woot! Snerk.
And through all of this there's been 
str8ontilmornin, from the time I still lived at home and lived in fear of going home, through those first years of independence when we both struggled to find ourselves and our place both alone and together, the years that we had to force our parents away because they wouldn't let go any other way, the years when the future we wanted was drifting further and further out of sight, and then, when we finally just leaped into the exciting and scary adventure of making our dreams coming true, and all the struggles and victories since then, and all the small moments in between. I wouldn't have gotten this far alone.
Anyway, I don't know if this latest thing with my mom is because of something I did or not, but I'm not going to fight it. Maybe she'll come back, maybe she won't, I'll deal with that if it happens. In the meantime, my life beckons and it's a good place to be.
Mood: 
contemplative