Happy Belated Birthday, Mom.

Mom, you would have been 79 years old if you were still alive.  Happy birthday, Mom.  The very best gift I could offer you is my forgiveness.  I wasn't the perfect daughter.  There was only one perfect human but that is saved for another day.  Today I offer my gift of forgiveness.

Mom, I forgive you for a lot of transgressions.  I am certain that through my remaining days there will be more things that pop up into my mind, both positive and negative memories.  I ask your forgiveness for falling short of the daughter you wanted.

I forgive you that you forced me to grow up and take responsibility for Matt for much of our young lives.  Even after you married Bud, I was still a primary parenting figure to Matt. That hurt him and it burdened me more than any 8 to 18 year old deserves.  I feel that the beginning was out of necessity because you were trying to keep us afloat with Dick not in the picture in any way.  After that, though is where the hurt is most profound.  You used me.  You neglected your duty as a parent to me and to Matt when you dropped us in Moulton so that you and Bud could live in Houston.  You tried to justify it that you were keeping us our of trouble after what Rick had done and been through.  I wasn't Rick, neither was Matt.  We were all in different developmental stages and dealing with a major shift when you married Bud.

I forgive you of all of the jabs about my weight and appearance.  I was doing my best to fill a hole that you created in me when you didn't fulfill your duties.  It started early and with increased pressure of adolescence, living in a rickety unreliable farmhouse in pretty harsh conditions, it got worse.  I forgive you of the jabs about recommending to the show, "What Not to Wear", telling me how to dress as an adult. So many instances, that I just can't count.  The strange thing was, you forgot that when you started to make more money that I needed to stop looking like I was wearing hand-me-downs.  You had forgotten the importance of positive body and self-confidence that you needed to foster and instill in me as your daughter.  I think this is what made me a "hard-ass", I always felt I was on my own.

I forgive you for the ugly things you have said about my home through the years, even my sons' artwork as children.   Nothing was ever good enough so you lived a life that wasn't full.  You tried to force that on to me.  You tried over and over to push me where to live and how to live and after forcing me to be independent, I wouldn't have it.  It bothered you that you were losing control of me.  I forgive you because, you shouldn't have controlled me ever.  I am sorry I gave that power to you, I cared too much.  

I forgive your shallowness about appearances.  You were insecure in who you were at the time and historically because of your own issues with your parents so you put on a mantle of everything beautiful and perfect.  Life isn't perfect and it is beautiful in the imperfections.  

I forgive you for failing to ever put me first.  I think you made a really good attempt with our wedding but for the rest of my life, it was all about you, you, you.  I pray that God is using my experiences to be a better parent and one day grandparent, to see and capture the beauty in togetherness.

I forgive you for treating me so differently than my brothers, holding me to a higher standard morally and behaviorally.  You seemed to have a real hands-off approach to my education through the years, I forgive you for that, too.  When I needed a car, you bought a sports car for yourself. I wasn't expecting something super nice, just something that would actually be mine.  I think Grandma and Grandpa gave Rick a car, Matt bought a car.  I didn't buy a car but I put my self through college paying for well over 1/2 of it, working while in high school and college and not accruing any debt in doing so.  I resented the way you would say, "Bud's put three through college right now." It was a lie.  You knew he wasn't paying for mine but you wanted to give laud and praise to him.  I resented that I was expected to be tough and work outside and do housework when on the farm but my brothers just had to work outside.  I forgive you for that and for all the little ways that Matt, my junior by only 18 months was coddled even through high school when I wasn't cherished.  You took advantage of my good nature and I forgive you.

Lastly, I forgive you for the role you played in your own death.  I think your borderline personality disorder grew and grew from late 1976 onward.  You would travel from doctor to doctor until you could get the medications you wanted to drug you and numb you from the pain you were feeling.  You were addicted to surgery and the need to be the center of everyones world.  Even the plaque on your desk stated, "Everyone is entitled to my opinion." You lacked humility, you didn't know how to ask forgiveness.  You certainly didn't know how to give it. Your drug addiction, your BPD, your insecurities make me overly cautious because I don't want my husband or children to have the relationship you had with me.  I forgive you for that conditioning. 

I think from heaven you are crying tears for me, hopefully looking out for me and helping me heal these gaping wounds.  I just think you didn't know.  

I forgive you Mom.

Double Take

I look a lot like my mother.  At one point in time after she died, my dad and I went out to eat at their country club where the two of them used to go and eat with friends.  One of her friends audibly gasped when she saw me with my dad, the similarities were that obvious.  I have done the same when passing a mirror.  

That being said, I don't always favor my mother.  My brother Matt, used to favor her a lot.  He has the long lankiness that she did in years gone-by.  My nephew, Aaron, though over 6'3" also has facial features that remind me of Mom.  Sometimes, when I grow out my hair I look less like my mother.  I have had short hair for a while and in my life, many times.  After Mom died, I refused to get the short hair that I wanted as a courtesy to my dad, knowing that if he looked at me, he would certainly see my Mom.  Given the amount of care I was giving to him, I didn't want those lines blurred.  I have darker skin than Mom and tan more easily, I tan VERY easily.  I also have my father's deep set eyes.  Mom didn't have those bags that I now carry.  Because I was a smidgen taller, I had longer fingers.  That drove her crazy that I was taller by an inch.  She was quite competitive in just about everything.

We did, though, both have scoliosis, mom had migraines in her earlier life, and at a few points in time, we both wore the same size.  I, of course, got larger and she started shrinking.  

We have some personality characteristics similarities as well.  Mom and I both love(d) color though we didn't love the same colors.  She had a talent for making a room look like a magazine spread.  We both love the creative endeavors and stage performances.  We both loved playing games; she was competitive though and I just loved the togetherness.  Both of us loved to read and we both needed glasses.  Both of us could be perceived as "bitchy" as we were a little too direct for many peoples taste.  Maybe that was lack of female influence in our lives, I don't know.  

There were some quite obvious differences between us, though.  Mom, from about 1976 onward (when she married Bud) was always concerned about what other's thought. I think as she got older it became even more of an issue. I think this was when her Borderline Personality Disorder began.  While I do like having friends, I think that Mom was a bit preoccupied with keeping up.  She liked the perception to be that she had money.  She was nosey about what Glen and I had and we were/are extremely private about that.  Mom was manipulative and controlling and I am more apt to let go of things, I hope.  If I cannot, I talk to Glen about them and usually that sets things in balance.  My mom was a self confessed gambler.  She told me she lost their "fortune" in the stock market twice, with losses near millions.  I am a sit and wait kinda girl, way less impulsive.  Mom had real talent when it came to decorating and cooking, but she lost interest in the latter. Mom was often insensitive to others feelings, she would lose friends in a heartbeat and not know why.  I lose friends, too, but not in the same way.  I am so desperate to have that long term friendship, I am more apt to fail to recognize that some friends are only for a season.  

So, yes, I am in so many ways LIKE my mother.  I am not, however, my mother and I refuse to become the woman that she was.  I will continue to pray that God's grace stay with me to keep me strong in the pull to the darkness that my mother succumbed to: BPD and self absorption. I thank God for the gift of my mother and all that I have learned both positive and negative while I hope to be mindful that my life is a gift from God and what I do with it is my gift back to God.

The Weight(y) Issue(s)

Recently, I met a woman with a very body positive vibe.  It was early June, I had orchestrated a neighborhood scavenger hunt, and she showed up in workout wear with no "over" clothes like I would have worn.  She was a pear shaped woman, likely 15 years younger than I and was absolutely loving being in her skin.

I wish I could say the same. 

Sure, I have my positive moments.  Usually it's when I look in the mirror after taking a shower and I have hair and makeup on.  There are other moments, too, when I actually feel good about how I look.  But this woman, there was no ambiguity about her self image.

Because of my aforementioned battle with sugar, my eating to fill a hole, and struggling with understanding that I don't have to keep up with anyone, I have issues.  When I was in high school, I don't recall every feeling "fat" or even larger than I was supposed to. I do remember eating WAY too much junk food.  Some of it directly tied to our living with a stranger.  In college I put on the "freshman fifteen" like most of my female classmates.  I struggled with it, trying to exercise it off but realistically speaking, I could not stick with an exercise regime to save my life. 

The only summer of my college career that I went back home, my mother decided it was time for me to lose weight.  We were living in Moulton and there was actually a Weight Watchers group somewhere nearby.  So I counted everything and felt deprived:  deprived of sugar, and carbohydrates, and attention that I actually wanted.  My Mom thought she would be my coach, watching everything I did and ate, encouraging me to walk on dusty roads in the heat of summer.  Once or twice she went with me and then she started to feel bad.  I was supposed to "run home" and tell my dad who would come pick her up.  This was likely July, middle of the day, on gravel roads.  I don't run.  I have never been a runner but Mom made out like she would die soon if I didn't so I tried, in the sun, on a gravel road that was an  uphill trek to get home.  I think I ran, then walked, then ran some more.  Mom didn't die that summer but I thought I might. 

Every once in a while, she would pat the back of my legs ----- the ones my brothers called "thunder thighs" ----- and say, "you don't need to eat that."  By the end of summer I was down to an acceptable weight according to Weight Watchers.  When I was driven back to college and I went grocery shopping.  I distinctly remember being near the Albertson's dairy department when we were walking.  Mom stopped and I went ahead.  "What are you doing?" I asked. "I am just looking at how beautiful you are now that you have lost weight."  Sigh.

Obviously I didn't stick with it.  Who was I doing this for anyway?  This isn't the kind of attention I wanted or needed.  It's pretty hilarious that I look back on my college pictures and say, "Wow, look how skinny I was!"  After the summer after my junior year, one of my residents (I was an RA) came to me to confess that she had an eating disorder.  It was why she was always wearing sweaters.  That blew me away; her family didn't pay attention to her.  

After I graduated my mom informed me that my grandfather was giving me liposuction surgery. 

What?  

Rick and Carolyn had been given washer and dryer after they were married from my Grandpa.  Matt was given a trip to Europe.  What did I get?  Liposuction that I didn't even know I needed.  Mom was in control of Grandpa's money and she wanted everything to be fair.  In my mind did washer + dryer = trip to Europe = Liposuction and 6 weeks of recovery seem fair? It still doesn't.  LIPOSUCTION HAD NEVER EVEN CROSSED MY MIND and now Mom had me thinking Grandpa thought I was too fat.  

Let me be crystal clear about a few things.  My mother's mother was over 5'10" tall and not a small woman at all.  My father was a large man.  Even in his early days when he was courting my mom, he was not a scrawny guy.  His own mother was a portly woman and his father died of a heart attack.  My sons are both above average at 6'1"; they got that from me and my side of the genetics.  One of the two is ectomorph and the other is an endomorph (I think) and honestly, I don't care so long as they are happy, healthy, and morally upright.  

I still eat too much and too fast but now I know why.  I can usually stop myself or at least slow down.  Fullness is a rarity for me.  It is truly better if I do intermittent fasting and wait to start eating around noon.  Nowadays, I feel like open the mouth, open the flood gates.  If I kept a food log, it might help but honestly I don't want to.  I still remember writing everything down for WW. Enough.

No, may I have a serving of unconditional attention please?  Let's serve it with a side of forgiveness.

Am I Allowed to Be Sad?

 I am writing these blog entries to work through things that I feel I might have buried for years.  I think these incremental burials played havoc on my body and rather than acknowledging that what I was feeling was a sort of stress, I was taken to doctors.  My migraine headaches started when I my period did.  My back trouble didn't bother me until much later. I developed Irritable Bowel Syndrome when I was in high school.  My poor eating habits took root in my body after my parents married.  My memory is very clear on three things:  my dad (Bud) had 3 large boxes of fortune cookies that he had for work.  All the fortunes were the same: "Schlage will bring you good lock." They were kept in the pantry --- perhaps my first foray in "closet eating".  I also remember coming home and making buttery pasta.  I don't recall there being any healthy snacks in the house that interested me.  I am thinking maybe some gross granola bars, like nature valley.  I do remember enjoying Yoplait yogurt but it was the pasta that I craved.  Also, I would save up my money and ride my bicycle to Mr. M food store.  It was a convenience store in our neighborhood in The Meadows.  I would grab my babysitting money and head that way and buy candy, all that I could.  I would eat quite a bit before getting home and hide the rest.  All three were absolutely awful choices for what to eat but I was living in a home with 2 parents working, not paying an incredible amount of attention to me, and not being given a whole lot of options.  Mom at this point was addicted to Coca-Cola; it was her morning coffee.  I come to realize much later into my adult life, that I rarely feel satisfied when I eat.  With brothers and later sons, I thought it was my job to keep up.  At one point in time a friend of mine gave me a sidelong glance and a comment that still stays with me.  She had noted that I had a hard time stopping eating something that I thought tasted good.  It was years later that I realized food (especially sugar) was to me what moving was to Mom.  I was trying to fill a vacuous hole and honestly, it is still a problem.  The primary difference is now is that I am aware.  My sugar addiction over all these years has lead to inflammation and issues from that----migraines, back pain, urinary tract infections, etc.  This is why I am doing the work.  But am I allowed to be sad and angry?  I, truthfully, don't want to do this work if the only thing I get out of it is anger or sadness.  

Interestingly, since starting this writing journey a few days ago, I have been sad. It is a very strong and sudden pull.  I will be okay, like a mellow 3 and dip down to a 1 in a matter of seconds.  It is really strange how quickly it will come.  So I think about the things I am writing and what is making me sad and acknowledge it.  I think I am allowed to be sad, I just don't want it to overtake me.  I think this is telling me I need to keep writing to write my way through my feelings.  

I had remembered back in the early 2000s I was struggling with depression and my Mom told me that I should go to a counselor.  I remember telling her, "Are you sure you want me to do that?  Because if I do, this is all your fault."  She didn't say anything in return.  So for now, at least, I am okay with being sad.