Momma Bear

I harbor a lot of resentment towards my mother. This resentment was made very apparent to me tonight.

I'm at work when my mom calls and says she is going to the ER. My mom has been to the ER 4 times in the past year. I don't ask her what's wrong. She tells me I need to come home and watch my brothers while my grandfather takes her to the ER. Aj and Cj can't stay home alone, at 10 and 12, even though I was staying home alone at 6 and babysitting at 7. Because I am living with my grandparents I am completely irked at the fact that I'll be spending the night at home to watch the boys. Selfish, I know. I closed work an hour late and didn't get home until 1120. I sped all the way home, frustrated. There have been many times in my life when I felt like I had to take care of my mother, many more times when I felt as though she was not competent enough to take care of herself, let alone her three children, myself included. I learned quickly to take care of myself. I remember, vividly, my stepfather teaching me to vacuum at 6 years old, then reprimanding me for doing it incorrectly. I was given the Stair Stepper exercising tool so that I could reach the washer and dryer at 7, and from then on I washed, folded, and put away the family's laundry a lot. I began watching my little brother at 7, he was 2. From that moment on I babysat my life away. Another memory set in stone is my weekend nights in Jr. High. My mom would come down the stairs, dressed to go out, and tell me she needed me to watch the boys, her and my stepfather would be home around 2. They paid me, I never, well rarely, argued- but as they walked out the door I felt a tinge of something, something not nice, something sad, something that wished I could go spend the night at a friends house instead of watch my brothers. My mom made working out her priority for a year or two when I was about 11. She would leave at noon and come home at 7. I made dinner for the boys. I hated that. But I felt like if I didn't, it wouldn't get done. I felt like if I didn't take care of the kids, my mom wouldn't know how to. She couldn't do that and take care of herself at the same time, and I knew that all too well. The last thing I needed was for my mom to be in hysterics with herself. I was the glue, that kept her barely hanging on in her loveless marriage, and inside her completely unhappy self. I made it easier for her to get up and go away from everything, without a worry or a care about the children she had at home. She never realized that. I did a lot for her, as cocky as it sounds, and I won't forget it.

Really, I understand that people have grown up worse than I have. I have a wonderful family, and am blessed with many things, but despite this I continue to harbor resentment towards my mother for, what I believe, was taking my childhood from me. Placing far too much responsibility on me, and ignoring my pleas for her to stop. Ignoring the letters I wrote, and heart to hearts I tried to have. On several occasions I sat up in my bed and tried and tried to work up the courage to tell her how I felt. I wanted her to spend time with me. I wanted her to take care of me. I remember complaining that she never baked with me, and everyone else's mother baked with them. A menial task that meant the world to me at 8. A menial task she couldn't muster up the strength to perform. I wanted her to mother me. And I tried to get that to happen, lord knows I tried. But I guess some things are just never meant to be. It just wasn't meant to be that way. I think it affected me negatively in the light of relationships. I need attention, and I need a lot of it. I am so afraid of being ignored, left alone for too long. I think this might be part of the reason why.

All of these feelings surfaced when I realized how irritated I was, as opposed to concerned, that she was on her way to the ER. You know how once you start thinking about something it explodes and you realize how many fragments and facets it actually contained? I suppose you could say that's what happened here.