Letting Go

It's been so hard to let go of the idea that, someday, I'd have the relationship with my mother (and my sister and my father) that I hoped for.   When I was little, I had this very idealized vision of my family.  I loved spending time with them and, generally, didn't want to be anywhere without them.  I idealized my mother.  I thought she was beautiful and interesting and I wanted to be just like her.  These days, I pray that I am anything but just like her.
It's so hard to let go because it is never THAT bad.  There is never a moment to point to and say "screw you, you did x, and so I'm over it".  It is difficult to justify that that all these little things, these secret manipulations and draining interactions, could cause me to want nothing to do with my mom.  It's difficult to let go of the idea that my mother just doesn't love me.  Or at the least, she doesn't love me more than herself.  And she'd sell me out, and has sold me out, whenever it suits her.  That my main purpose in her life is to provide a reflection of her, to fill her up, to give and give and give.  I can't explain it to friends.  My sister would never forgive me.  My father, even though he thinks my mother is nuts and hardly speaks to his own mother, would never understand. People think the problem is me.  And although I know it is not me (for the most part), it's hard to get past the point that I have such a selfish, manipulative, deceitful mother and not wonder what I could do do make it better.
The expectations of others are one of the hardest things for me.  Honor thy mother.  Respect your mother.  Where do you, Jessi, contribute to the problem.  Let it go.  Let it roll of your back.   Try and see her good points because someday you'll miss her when she's gone.  Well, maybe that's true.  But most likely I'll miss the mother I wished she had been.  Seperating from my mom, holding her at a distance, will always be held against me by society.  I'll always be the ungrateful, begrudged daughter who can't get over the past.  They will never understand that she is like a cancer inside of me who has eaten me up and that if I don't hold her at arm's length, if I don't seperate from her, if I don't let her and all my idealized hopes go, she will swallow me whole.