Beautiful Dreamer

Last night Sissyface picked me up so I could watch our reality show, The Hills, at her place. It was the season finale and it just made sense to enjoy it together. During commercial breaks they had trivia questions about the cast of the show; I told her it was pretty pathetic that we knew most of the answers, especially since the typical age range of the viewing audience is about 13-21 years old!

This morning (I'm already beginning to break out into a sweat, knowing that Austin will read this and scold me) I wandered over to the pub for breakfast. YES, I played video poker, I readily admit it! I gambled $10 and pocketed $50--not bad, eh? In the sweet afterglow of my winnings I decided to splurge on breakfast which was oh so yummy and filling.

I'm back at Sissyface's now where I'll be doing housework to earn more money. Gosh, it sure is nice how this works out:  she hates housework and would rather pay me to do it than do it herself. I don't mind it and need the extra bucks, so there we go. Works out for everyone.

I had to promise my granddaughter, Isabella, that I'd only be gone one night. When I came back home Saturday after my 2 weeks absence she said, "Nana, I don't want you to ever go to Auntie's again!"

At some point during my sabbatical from home, I found myself unaccountably struggling with thoughts of suicide. I think what got me thinking along those lines was seeing my mother's handwriting, inadvertently trying on the robe I didn't realize was one of her hand-me-downs, and hearing snippets from Sissyface's trip. Well, whatever caused my suicidal desires I was totally unprepared to deal with them. When such yearnings hit me at a time when I've got too much solitude, it's not a good thing. When I'm all by my lonesome trying to hold back the anguish of so many various parts who are sick to death of living, it doesn't bode well for my emotional stability.

The thing is, my family (and I include my cyber friends in this category) help pull me to the surface everytime I'm in danger of drowning in my age old sorrow. Izzy clinging to me upon my arrival home and telling me she missed me every day, helps. So does Maddy (my 19 month old granddaughter) calling me, "Honey!" The innocent love and devotion of childhood woos me back from the murkiness of self-destructiveness.

The compassionate words of an e-mail, sent to me by a friend who battles the same demons and knows the depths of my particular hell, brings me a little ways back from the brink of no return. Holding my newest grandbaby and breathing in her new baby scent, and glimpsing her deep dimples, does something to dispel the darkness threatening to swallow me whole.

Sometimes inanimate objects work just as well. An especially gorgeous work of art, tulips drooping gracefully in a vase, the smell of hand lotion I wore during easier times and have recently started wearing again as a reminder that this too shall pass.

I don't care what pulls me back each time, I've the humility to not care if it's some hidden inner strength that does the job, or if the credit goes totally to someone else. I've not the luxury of pride----survival's the goal, for if I manage to make it through another day anything can happen. Something breathtaking, perhaps, or even something of a more muted nature which nevertheless makes all the difference in  my slipperyslide into depression.

Even while in the grip of the fiercest desire to die, a part of me stands aloof (a watchman of sorts) on alert for the smallest thing which will tip the scales in favor of my choosing life.

"Watchman, what of the day?" I inquire (quietly, for I am fast losing strength) and she replies:

"The day is not yet done; just a moment or two longer, and help is sure to arrive."

And so I wait until the day has come and gone, and night has set in once more.

"Watchman, what of the night?" I gasp, my breathing ragged and uneven.

"Oh, the night is resplendent with beauty!" my Watchman responds eagerly. "Look up at the multitude of stars . . ."

She needn't say more; these are the same stars I wished on as a child. And though my wishes were rarely if ever granted, the mere sight of the stars twinkling at me as if in goodwill comforts me beyond all expression.

"It is well with my soul," I decide, experiencing that familiar shift deep within which means that somehow disaster has been once more averted.

It seems I've been rescued somehow, one more time. And I don't take it lightly.

I don't take it lightly at all. 

Several years after I'd ended my relationship with my mother, she stopped to visit my brother and his wife while she was on her way back to her home state. My brother knew good and well that I'd severed all ties with Mom, but decided it would be fun to play with her head a bit.

"If you've been in town two weeks you've probably already visited Beauty," he said, knowing this was not the case. At this her brow puckered in puzzlement.

"No, she seems to blame me for something her step father did when she was little," she said slowly. My brother told me she wore her typical helpless expression, the one she gets when she is confronted by something she doesn't care to acknowledge. "And I just don't understand it," she continued with a whine.

At this my brother (bless his heart) looked her right in the eye and said, "Well Mom, I suppose Beauty just wanted what every little girl needs: to be protected."

My mother turned beet red, stammered, nearly swallowed her tongue, and hemmed and hawed until she managed to change the subject.

What I want to know is:  how can someone so successfully sweep things under the rug that, decades later, they end up playing the role of victim? I mean seriously, how could she justify making it sound as if I were unfairly judging her when in fact she conveniently kept her head turned during my childhood so that her hubby could have his way with me?

I seem to have my mother on my mind lately. I'm not sure if it's because of the holiday or what.  The fact that Sissyface just returned from visiting her probably doesn't help matters any. Whatever the reason for her haunting my thoughts, I wish she'd go away.  

While raising my sons all those years ago, I did everything I could think of to be a different kind of mother than my own. I gave them lots of affection, told them I loved them frequently, and protected them from abuse. The same goes for my grandkids. No one is going to abuse them while I'm around. They
Newborn Isabella and cousin Eric. What kind of legacy am I leaving them?get lots of hugs and kisses from me, for I want to be the kind of nana I never had. And yet none of this is enough to erase my mother's mark on my life. There are no trade-offs here; the good I've tried to do for my kids and grandkids doesn't, in some cosmic sense, obliterate her evil, shattering influence on the whole of my life.

Still, one must do all in one's power to tip the scales in favor of good, and away from evil.  And so I do, in mostly minor ways.  A kind word here, a hug there, the sharing of good rollicking laughter. It's all I can do, but it occurs to me that we who were victimized as children sometimes underestimate the influence we may have on others. If you're anything like me, you may often feel as if your life has no purpose or meaning. But it's sometimes the little acts of life which have such a telling effect on others:

Sometimes when I'm at my lowest emotionally I'll receive a kind, even tender e-mail from a cyber buddy, encouraging me to hang in there. Though in a sense nothing that anyone says really helps, the heart behind the words touches me deeply and lets me know that I'm not totally alone in my fight to survive.

We all choose to either accept or reject our childhood legacies. I've carefully picked over my childhood, choosing with great care those concepts and values and mind sets worthy of emulation. Most of them derived from my earliest childhood, when my father was still a part of my world. None of what I've chosen to hang onto as a treasure has come from my mother. That's okay. I'll take what I can get, from whatever source.

My legacy is not confined though to what I've gleaned from my father. There is a
Beauty with cousin and Auntie.beloved aunt, a dear friend, my sister: everyone who has ever touched me deeply in a soul stirring, healing way. In the same manner that we, as adults, have the ability and free will to choose who we wish to think of as family, we also have the capacity to be down right picky as to what legacy we will allow to guide us. As with my haunting thoughts of my mother, we may not be able to totally eradicate the negative legacy from our emotional lives, but we don't have to allow it to mold us any longer.

As we have the audacity to be picky, something amazing begins to happen. Slowly strength begins to build where before we were nothing but weak, crushed and cast down.  We begin to find ourselves holding our heads a bit higher, for in deliberating over our legacies we are gifting ourselves with what we never had as children: choice. And we all know what choice equals:

Power. 

My oldest son, who sold Tim the bike he wiped out on and has felt deep guilt ever since, is still riding his bike. The other day a tire on it blew while he was going 70 mph. How did I end up with such knuckleheaded sons? I mean, come on now. I tried the old guilt trip on him, but my guilt trips never have done any good.

"Do you want to end up like Tim?" I asked him. "Maybe you could be roommates?" Oh, I suppose that was cruel, but I don't care. Why is he still riding his motorcycle, does he have a death wish?

Okay, that's all I had to say.  

Ever since I severed my relationship with my mother about 7 years ago, I've had to find a new approach to Mother's Day. It's not a holiday easy to ignore, especially with 5 sons who like to honor me on that day.

My firstborn arrived on Mother's Day, so relishing the memory of his birth takes some of the sting out of the day. (I was a bit shocked today when I figured out that he just turned 37. Sheesh, my sons are beginning to make me look bad!) Tim was here this weekend and he and his brother, Chris, took a little trip to the store to get me a cake and card. Chris let Tim pick out both; typically for him he chose a heart shaped cake, and a card proclaiming me the best mother in the world. I always get a kick out of how sentimental my sons are!

I've been away from home for 2 weeks, first house sitting for Sissyface and then tending to Maddy while her parents spent time at the hospital with newborn Anna who won't be coming home for about another week. To say that I'm exhausted is beyond an understatement. I'm worn to a frazzle and have been out of my normal routine for far too long. I'd forgotten that at Maddy's there's so computer, so I didn't even have the ability to blog or reply to e-mails. They don't have cable either, so I was limited to soap operas and Judge Judy. Uh-huh.

When I came home yesterday Izzy ran to hug me and whispered, "I missed you everyday, Nana." Later she cried out, "I love you bigger than the world, Nana!" She decided to proclaim yesterday Daughter/Nana Day until I reminded her that she's actually my granddaughter.  Chris tried to horn in on our day until she reminded him they'd just had a Daddy/Daughter day and that it was now my turn to share a special day with her.

As I was preparing to take Tim back to his residence today, I mentioned something about the library. He said, "Oh, are you going to the library?" This was said with enthusiasm, as if he was thinking of asking to tag along. Normally I would have been glad to take him somewhere; today all I could think was, "I love you to death, but your brain injuries are one of the reasons I need to lose myself in fiction, and I just need to browse the library alone."

Sigh. This mothering business is hard. I feel myself fumbling along, sure of only one thing: I'm better at this--worlds better--than my mother.  I'm fairly certain none of my kids will ever cringe upon glimpsing my handwriting or look back at my memory as something to be consigned to the nether regions of things to not think of, ever.

Speaking of cake (which I think I was earlier), I'd better be moseying on into the kitchen to get my fair share before it's all gone. 

I'm in serious need of an attitude adjustment, so here I am trying to scrounge up a handful of things for which to be grateful:

Izzy and I looking at family photos on the computer--when I say "ugh!" upon seeing a photo of me she says, "I like pictures of you, Nana!" When I tell her that I don't she gives me a considering look and says, "Well Nana, maybe it's your glasses . . . "  Sissyface's new kitty, Scout, snuggling under my chin at night for a long snooze . . . hearing my son Tim say, "You're a good mother . . . " Realizing that the guilt I feel regarding not reconciling with my mother is false guilt, and that I can't really make peace with her because she is not remorseful for her sins against me . . . holding my newest grand baby, Anna, for the first time (little sweetie pie!) . . . solving the locking-the-keys-in-the-basement dilemma without resorting to calling a locksmith . . . getting a straight flush on video poker (which I can admit to here because Sissyface no longer reads my blog!)