Overwhelmed

I've been feeling so overwhelmed lately.  As liberating as this all is, as freeing as it is to think I'm changing, moving past it, finally healing, it is also overwhelming to deal with the grief, the sadness, the realization that we really are alone.  Things will not get better.  DH and I are not ever going to have that family support we so desperately hoped for.  It is overwhelming to think of all the work ahead.  To realize how many of our friendships took advantage of our preconditioned natures.

DH and I have come so far.  We have grown closer in the past few months than we ever have.  He is willing and eager to listen and hear me.  While he may not always agree, he considers and validates me.  But it is such a long road I see stretched out.  Such a long road of recovery, redefining life, setting out on our own.

And in the midst of all this, life goes on.  Laundry piles up as I write posts.  My kids entertain themselves more than I'd like them to as I try to sort through this all.  The house is a wreck.  I am trying to let go of my perfectionism, but some days, I want to drag everything out on the lawn, burn it all, pack up me and my family and start over.  Live more simply.  We finally have the "home" I've longed for and worked for and needed, but sometimes the weight of it is too much.  DH hates his job and I know he shoulders more than his share of the burdens of that, protecting me from the stress he is feeling.  Knowing that, at the moment, I just can't carry anymore.  But I hurt for him, and feel for him, and worry for him.

I walked through Target today, tears playing in my eyes.  Stupid tears as I looked at clothes and diapers and just felt so adrift.  Felt so lonely.  Wished so desperately that we had ANY family that could surround us without expecting something in return, or using our rough patch to make themselves feel better, or gossip about us behind our back.  That we could trust and lean on someone.  To know that the friends I see dropping by the wayside, who would never even think about asking how WE are doing, aren't all we had hoped they would be.  Trying to be strong, carry my kids, find the way to soldier on, heal on the run, as I grieve, and feel loss, and feel lonely, and feel tired.

Memories

It surprises me that I can think of so few memories of my childhood (pre-divorce) with my parents.  I have a great memory.  I can recall in vivid detail some memories of my life.  I can recall with great clarity staring at the yellow school buses in the dark, mangled by rain in my vision as Mom told me my Dad was moving out.  I remember my(now) husband sitting on the steps of his house, in my rearview mirror, as I drove away when he would be moving the next day.  I can remember, vividly, my desire to be an OB.  And I remember vividly my realization that it meant I also must be a GYN (and what the hell a GYN actually did).  I remember outings and vacations, but the pop into my memory in images of the photo albums that I have.  I don't have the actual memory, just the image I've memorized from the album.  Sure looks like we had fun.

But I don't remember a lot of things with my NM.  I remember she cleaned alot.  And mowed the lawn.  And had a lot of things to get done.  I always liked it when she spent the afternoon cleaning and cooking a nice meal and offered us warm chocolate chip cookies.  It was such a treat and I remember feeling so cared for.  I remember her being brisk, and cold, and distant.  I remember her putting me in charge a lot.

I remember that she picked out my clothes a lot.  That I didn't have a lot of choice about personal style.  She decided that for me.  In fact, sis and I were often part of a coordinated set.  I don't remember her taking any real interest in me.  I don't remember her asking me how my day at school was.  I don't remember her ever taken my part with a teacher, or going to school to defend me, or even being really interested at all.  As long as I excelled, behaved well, caused no problems, it was all good.  She didn't bring me flowers to my school players.  She often expressed that it was difficult to get time off of work.  I remember one time fighting over a part in the school play with my teacher.  The teacher had been nagged by another parent to split the part-there were four performances-because she felt her daughter should've gotten the part (you know, give another kid a chance to be the lead).  I remember arguing with my teacher that this wasn't fair.  Not because it wasn't fair to yank the part from me after I'd had it for weeks, but because my mom didn't know what show she could attend and I wanted her to see me perform.  And I was 11.

I remember that mom always ticked the boxes of being a good mom (again, credit to Kara "The North Wind).  Buy nice school clothes, tick.  Enroll in dance lessons, tick.  Attend parent teacher confrences, tick.  But she never seemed interested.  I don't remember a lot of love, or affection, or consideration for me.  I wondered for a long time if this behavior from her started only as I reached adulthood.  But I can see so many mini-signs as I grew up.  We went on vacations, we rode bikes together, we went shopping (mainly I watched her shop).  But we didn't have a relationship.  We didn't have a connection, at all.  She didn't really know me then, and she sure as hell doesn't know me now.  And in fact, I don't think it would've even accord to her to think about me as an individual.  I was just a kid, what did I know.

I do remember that she favored my sister.  Always.  She let her get away with murder and she expected me to do the same.  She made me her "littler helper."  I was her assistant, and that made me feel important.  But I often felt more like a pet than a human being.  I remember her braiding my hair into tight braids because that was what was easiest for her.   I remember her picking out every outfit I had for a special occasion, with out me.  I remember always feeling that I needed to be with my family.  I always felt, even at 8,9, 10 that going out with friends, was somehow a betrayal.  I remember she never helped me with my homework or inquired about what I needed.  All so distant.

I remember one time in the summer (Sis and I spent summers pretty much locked in our house.  We weren't allowed to go outside because it scared NM who was at work.)  I babysat, cleaned, did chores, and sat around.  I had started to start suppers for her before she came home.  She would call on the phone and give me the instructions on what to do.  Brown the hamburger.  Boil noodles.  Pretty soon I became adept and could cook whole meals.  I noticed that her kitchen was a bit disorganized and disheveled.  Not horrible so.  So, I thought, in my little innocent mind, that I would clean an organize her cupboards.  I didn't rearrange things terrible.  I didn't overhaul the whole thing.  But I wiped the drawers and the cupboards.  Lined up the spices.  Put like things with like and moved a few things to where they would be easier to access.  NM flew into a rage.  Not at me directly.  She screamed at my Dad about what a horrible person I was.  How dare I arrange HER kitchen?  I had screwed up all of HER things.  Where did I get off thinking I needed to do that?  Yup, that was mom.  No good deed went unpunished.

Frankenstein's monster

Sometimes I feel, well a lot of the time I feel, so alone in all this.  Wearing this mask that everyone wants me to have is exhausting. People just don't understand.  They can never fully understand as it's such a subversive, misty, blurry experience.  And even when I try to explain, I can see the person start to fold under the weight of it all.  I can see  them avert their eyes, or dismiss the truth.
They can never see how much these experiences colored everything in my life.  Sure, I wouldn't be the person I am without these experiences.  Odds are, I never would've met my husband or had my kids if mother hadn't made some of the choices she made.  Yes, there were positive outcomes.  But the loneliness, the isolation, the difficulty trusting anyone consume me at times.  I have no idea who I really am.  There is no internal compass to help direct me in my life.  I'm a ship lost at sea.  And even if I knew my way, I have no port to call home.
I often feel as an outcast.  A black sheep.  A trouble maker.  Hard, cold, overly sensitive.  People have used these words to describe me.  Am I really that person?  Sometimes I feel like Frankenstein's monster.  A patch worked together creation of others.  A freak in the eyes of most.  Just so, so isolated.