I have not spoken to my mother in several years. Mother’s Days, birthdays, Christmases have passed. I have turned down invitations to family Thanksgivings because she would be present and I know that we cannot coexist in the same space and it is not my right to be the cause of her spending a holiday alone.
Even when I was a child, our relationship was tumultuous. I was born when she was twenty-three years old. Newly married, insecure, and far too young and confused to be a mother. She had dreams. Wanted to be a lawyer, to spend a few years in New York, she wanted a beautiful house full of beautiful things. She never finished college. Transferred twice before dropping out. As an adult, I realize that I exist as her foil. I did the things she wished to do; I avoided commitment (or abandoned commitment when it no longer served me), dodged the weight of unplanned pregnancies. I briefly wanted a career as an attorney and found one as a writer. I took a long, winding path to a bachelor's degree. I live in a sunny apartment in New York. I write this sitting at a beautiful, easily stained dining table that was far too expensive. There are trinkets on the shelves, polaroids from parties full of chic, mostly childless friends on my door. I don’t think she was able to forgive me for existing as she couldn’t.
My mother was born on third base. In Highland Park, Texas, a few blocks from Dallas Country Club. Her parents were both doctors. They threw parties and read books and took all five of their children to Europe every other summer. My grandparents' adult lives did not reflect their upbringings. My grandfather was the son of a factory worker who had a fourth grade education. My grandmother was born in Newark, New Jersey during the Great Depression. Her older brother used to collect cigarette stubs on the street and roll the tobacco dregs into new cigarettes that he sold to neighborhood kids. My grandmother did not know women could go to medical school until she was in college. She became a neonatologist. There were two women in her class at Baylor College of Medicine. By the time I knew my Oma, she wore a large opal around her neck, Saint Johns suits, Nancy Regan hair, always a full face of makeup, and played bridge with other ladies at the club. My mother felt the life her parents had was her birthright. She ended up with a leaky roof in Waco, TX. Five children. Water and power that were often turned off.
My mother was in a difficult situation that she did not handle well and could not find her way out of. When we were children, my siblings and I suffered the brunt of much of her malcontentment. My mother is a mean woman. She is good with words and uses them to wound others when she feels wounded. And she feels wounded very often. A tragic figure, determined to inflict those around her with similar suffering.
I realized recently that I do not love my mother.