I love my mother. It’s important that I lead with that, lest you think the following contents of this post mean that I hate her. I most definitely do not. Once upon a time, my mother and I were as close as night and day.
Then my parents got divorced.
My mother has struggled with depression for some time. I know she was raped by the church pastor when she was a teen, and assaulted again in college (though that man, fortunately, had a conscience and changed his mind). Her first pregnancy was a miscarriage, and she suffered post-partum depression after she had my siblings and I. However, in my childhood I remember my mother as extremely loving and attentive. She was wildly creative–one year I had a Barbie birthday cake where the cake formed the skirt of the doll’s ballgown. My mom had a garden, and imbued us with an appreciation for and a curiosity about nature.
Still, my parents were prone to arguments. They didn’t happen often, but when they did, my father shouted and my mother cried and they were both moody for days afterward. Once, my mom asked me if they should get divorced, and with a child’s honesty I replied, “Maybe.” My parents are polar opposites, and my best friend, whose parents were divorced, seemed happy. She got twice the presents at every holiday and she went to her dad’s house every weekend, even when her mother remarried. I figured if that was what divorce meant, it wasn’t so terrible.
When I was 13, it actually happened. We went through family therapy in which I found out my dad had cheated on my mom, more than once. I was upset, but he was still my father. I still wanted him to come to my recitals and award ceremonies, but soon realized that this desire was seen by mother as a slight. She took to ask us who we loved more, and when my dad came to pick us up, he didn’t come in the house. From that point on, my sister took on a lot of the work of raising me–she was the one who talked to me about college, taught me how to drive and took me to get my license, lectured me when I stayed out past curfew, got me up for church on Sundays, hugged me when my mom came home from work and spent the rest of the night in bed.
Over the last decade my mother has become even more depressed and emotional. She is a hoarder–always has been, but my dad is a neat freak and threw stuff out with enough regularity to keep our house at a tolerable level of clutter. Post divorce, the house was/is literally bursting at the seams with clothes and papers and knickknacks. It makes me feel claustrophobic so my visits tend to be brief. On summers home from college, I stayed with my dad because there LITERALLY was no place to stay even though my mother lived in a 2 bedroom apartment. She now lives in a 3 bedroom house and it’s still the same. She’s been in and out of therapy and doesn’t take her medication–at times because she couldn’t afford it, at times because she just didn’t feel like it.
My mother was a homemaker up until the divorce, although she has a Bachelor’s degree in business administration. Still, she hasn’t had a full time job. Part of this is because she isn’t technologically savvy. We have tried to help her, but she gets frustrated and gives up. The local library has free tech classes for seniors but she doesn’t go to those either. She is also notoriously absentminded, and has been known to lose her rent money. She’s terrible with money in general because she is an emotional shopper the way some people are emotional eaters. Lately, she keeps having accidents and other health problems, several of which she just revealed to us, that she has yet to seek treatment for. She can’t pay her bills and I don’t even want to know what her debt situation is like. And the icing on the cake is that she’s been dating the most obnoxious, distasteful man on the planet for eight years who can only see her 2 days a week, has no intention of proposing and says they can’t move in together unless he wins the lottery.
I am tired. Tired of not being able to talk to my mother like a rational adult. Tired of the emergencies. Tired of the guilt trips. Tired of being reminded that she gave her best years to take care of us and now it’s our turn to return the favor. Tired of all five of her siblings turning a blind eye as she self-destructs. Tired of my father being blamed for everything that is wrong in her life. Tired of her inability to see that she can do better. Tired of trying to convince her that I still love her. Tired of her refusal to take responsibility for any of her choices.
Now I have been informed by my sister that we are just around the corner from worst case scenario; that we have to find her a new place to live; that we have to take control of her finances; that if she can’t work I may have to quit school and help take care of her full time, and Tex and I will not be able to start our lives together.
It shouldn’t be my burden. But it is.
