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I love my mom, but she has not always been the best mother.
I realized this when I was quite young, but it took me a long time to understand exactly how and why she is the way she is. In fact, I am not entirely sure that I understand even today, while I am typing this very sentence.  You see, when I was born I had two parents who had both married young and seemed to love each other more than two people could possibly love each other. I suppose this is why it seems all the more unfortunate that my dad ended up passing away. I was only four months old, so it is kind of like I never really knew him. Sometimes I am thankful that he died when I was a baby, and not when I was older, because I feel like I would not be able to cope with that pain as well as I seem to be able to cope with this one. This pain isn’t like a loss, so much as something that was never there in the first place. There are things that are able to mend that hole in my heart temporarily, but it seems like, regardless of whatever I do, eventually the hole rips open again and I am back to this empty feeling.
I often seem to compensate for this empty space by latching onto other people in my life, the people that I love and cherish unspeakable amounts. One of these people has been my mom, which makes sense, right? Who doesn’t love their mom? And of course, as I said in the beginning, I do love my mom. But sometimes even the people you love the most can leave you feeling emptier than ever.
Someone who makes me feel the exact opposite of empty is my Nana. All of my life she has been the person that kept me sane, made me feel safe. I saw a post earlier this week on Facebook that was talking about children who were raised in violent or unhappy homes, and the post ended by saying “but it made you stronger”. While this might be the case, I was a child. I didn’t need to be stronger, I needed to be safe. And as I said before, my nana was the one person in my life that made me feel safe. This is why it made me so overjoyed when I was able to move in with her my freshman year of high school.
I finally had my own room and every day my Nana would pick me up from school. I would walk outside to find her big, red cadillac parked in the very front (as she was the type to always be at least 30 minutes early to things). I was always greeted with a smile, asked how my day was, what I learned. Maybe we would even get an afterschool-snack as well, the possibilities were endless. The drive home was always pleasant (and the home itself was, too). Nobody fought, there was always laughter filling the rooms, and I felt seen. Plus, I had my own room. I had never had my own room before, and even though it was kind of cramped and filled with boxes, it was mine.
As the days turned to weeks, weeks to months, this routine became the norm in my life. It was comfortable, predictable. These months that I lived with my Nana were some of the best months of my life. But, of course, things only seem to stay this for so long before something (or in my case, someone) finds a way to mess up the groove of things.
It was the end of the school day and I was so ready to leave. The final bell rang and I was headed straight out the door, excited to get back to my Nana, and my room, and change out of my school clothes into something a bit more comfortable. Basically, school was stressing me out but I found solace in knowing that I was headed home. But walking outside, I was confused. Where was my Nana’s car? As I previously mentioned, she was always early, sitting in the very front of the after-school pick-up line. I was looking all around, concerned that something happened, because she was never late. I was about to call her when all of a sudden I faintly heard someone yell my name; it was my mother.
What was my mom doing here? And who is driving this truck? I walked over to the door and tried to ask, but I remember just being motioned to get into the car. It stressed me out seeing my mom because it really caught me off guard, but regardless, she told me to get in the backseat. Waiting patiently in the back of the car, I asked, “Why are you here?”. I was worried, where was my Nana? Is she okay? Did something happen? My mom quickly snapped back at me, retorting that her and her boyfriend had gone to my Nana’s and got all of my stuff because I was going to be moving in with them. It was in this moment that my heart sunk, I had wanted to live with my Nana my whole life and I was finally in a seemingly good place in my life. And just like that, I was yanked from my comfort zone.
The drive over to my new home was one I will never forget. I remember just wanting to jump out, make this car ride stop. I knew the way to my Nana’s house, and sure it would be a long walk, but anything was better than this. Pulling up to the little house, which wasn’t even really a house but, in fact, an automotive repair shop, I walked inside. There were 3 rooms in the front of the building, one was a bedroom for the kids, one was an office, and the other was a living room/kitchen/bedroom for my mom and her boyfriend. “Your bed is in there,” my mom said, and so I opened the door and saw everything I had ever owned poured on top of this twin-sized bed, spilling down into the floor as if it were a collapsing mountain.
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I wish I could say that, now, our relationship has drastically improved. I mean, in some aspects it has, but I am fairly sure those are because we don’t see or talk to each other nearly as much now. In fact, going weeks or even months without communicating has become normal to me. I forget that I have a mom sometimes, because not only do I come home everyday to an apartment where I am the adult making the decisions, but there are never any missed calls, either. No texts reminding me she loves me, or telling me she has missed me, none of that at all. Instead, what I usually get is radio silence. And honestly, I am grateful for that, because when it isn’t radio silence, usually it is something much worse.
So I guess I am supposed to be the mature one now, and go ahead and forgive my mother for everything she has done in her life and mine. I am expected to say that she did her best, and that is all you can ask of any mother. Well, as harsh as this may sound, if that was her best it definitely wasn’t good enough. I could lie right now and say that I have moved past it, that I have become the bigger person and chosen to be positive about the situation. I could say that I am starting to understand it all in a new light. That, no matter what, everything that she did, she thought was best for me... but who would that be helping? You want the truth? I would forgive my mother if I could, but I don’t think I can. At least, not right now. That is something that I have to work on each and every day. And if that isn’t okay, well it is going to have to be, because that is where I am at right now.