Memoir-ish. I want to write again - but I worry what I share is too harsh and traumatic
My mother was a broken woman. This is the way I have come to process her and her behavior now that I am in my 50s.
When I was a little girl, though, there was no such thing as talking about parents being broken. It was the 70s and 80s. Nobody talked about anyone being broken. There were just parents. And there were just kids. And everyone just bumbled alongside each other and tried their best to get through their obligations. Parents were tasked with raising kids, and kids were tasked with navigating around their parents’ resentment.
There were no jokes about someday lying on a couch, relaying childhood trauma to therapists. Therapy was for Woody Allen movie characters who had indulgent lives, wore tweed, and did grown-up things like drink whiskey and listen to classical music in brown landscapes.
I was a pleaser. It was my one job, and I worked tirelessly at it. I worked it with the dedication of a middle-aged office manager trying to support his family. Every morning I would wake up and vow to try again – try harder – and do a good job today. I would wake up and make it a “snappy new day”. I tried, Mr. Rogers, with your sweet little tigers and narcissistic little kings and your toot toot little trolley.
I was an exhausted 7-year-old going to school and failing miserably there. Failing the work. Failing at making friends. Walking around with my cooties and ugly denim overalls while all the little girls got to wear bows and dresses and Mary Janes. Angering teachers with my inability to focus, my staring out of windows, my not knowing what the “difference” between 9 and 7 was. I would then pack up and take my failures home with me, to try and work hard at this job I never applied for, never asked for, never wanted, and never got paid for.
I was bad at it.
This job required deep environmental assessments. Extreme hypervigilance. Very specific answers to very tricky questions. This job required detecting any change in the air. Noticing a shift in noise level (silence was always bad), following with extreme superstition anything that remotely yielded success the previous day (yesterday I put my winter hat on the desk in my bedroom – NOT my bed. That was a good day – do that again today).
There was no performance review. No job satisfaction survey. Just me taking inventory at the end of every day, weighing out my successes and my errors with only myself as the reviewer. There were no “good jobs”. There were no indulgent smiles or proud beams. Just a holding of breath and wishing to get through this moment. And this moment. And this moment. And this moment – please – with it not happening.
There was no “self-esteem.” I don’t know if people talked about it in the 80s – if it was something only for divorced women or teenage girls who finally got their braces off. I remember self-esteem being discussed on Mr. Rogers with his soft voice, dull sweaters, and creepy puppets. He said he liked me and that I was special, that there was nobody like me. And maybe he was right, singing sweet little songs and tossing around his shoes….I felt like there was nobody like me, sweaty and crying and having kids trip me and put tacks on my seat. I felt very alone in my uniqueness, but I know Mr. Rogers was also trying. He, too, had a job to do – to sing and smile and hope he was reaching every sad and pathetic little kid who stumbled onto PBS.. but I also knew there was a whole universe and a TV screen between us, and he did not really know that I existed.
My mother, though, she knew I existed. There was no universe or TV screen between us. Although I would wish for anything to come between her and me. To protect me from her anger. I would conjure up protection – mostly in the form of animals – who would create a wall between her and me. Childlike puppies and anthropomorphic kittens who would try their best to shield me. Beautiful, angelic white fish with flowing lacey fins circling me, creating a warm barrier between me and my mother.
They tried.
They too had a job to do.
They also never applied, never accepted their positions, never were paid. I conjured them up, and then there they were… desperately devoted to their hot, red-faced little creator with bruises on her face and tangled hair - still sticky from her mother’s sweaty fingers and coming loose from her stinging scalp. They circled me and smiled at me and tried to be a friend to me.
They too failed at their job.
There was no such thing as “angry people” back then. Or – if there were – there was no such thing in my world. My mother was angry. Always angry. But the only thing that really made her angry was me.
Angry at the childish mistakes I made: shoes in the wrong place. Slamming the toilet seat too loudly. A stain on my shirt. Sneezing. Losing a button. Failing a test. Not understanding my math homework. For making my dad leave us. For standing too close to men. For having my belly press into my pants button. For laughing. For crying. For falling and scraping my knee. For having blood run down my nose or out of my mouth when she hurt me. For bruising her hand with my face.
All of these things - a reflection of not only my poor job performance, but moral failings as a human. A stupidly small human.
I played the part of a ping pong ball. Bouncing in any direction I was flung, passively trying to find a place to land, always at the will of the paddles in my life. The one job I was good at was smiling no matter what. I was HAPPY.
I could be tossed around into the air, dragged by my scalp, bent over a knee to be pummeled, elbowed in the face…. And then suck in the air, close my eyes, picture my animal friends, and walk out of the room just fine to face the world. I was ok. I was OK. I didn’t need anything else to cry about. So I learned how to stop crying.
My mother was an emotionally stunted woman. That was not language that anyone had back when I was a child. Certainly not me. I just knew that if I got a stuffed animal, or any kind of toy, she would need to get one too. There were times when we would play stuffed animals together, she and I.
Those were peaceful moments. Moments where our stuffed doggies would get along, and there would be peace in our little animal kingdom.
My imaginary animal friends would get a well-deserved day off, and I would go to bed high on the joy of an evening that went well, of a night being fun and joyful. I would cherish those moments and all of their sweetness. My reward for somehow everything going right that day. Weekdays were my favorite because there were fewer hours with her to make a mistake. Yes, it would be a school day, but some days would just…. Work themselves out. I would try to take my inventory at the end of those days – what did I do – what did I do… and then there were even a few days in a row where I would delude myself into believing that maybe everything just magically changed. Maybe Mr. Rogers was right, and the land of make-believe could be real, and I acquired some magical life promotion.
I remember one day asking my mother to never hurt me again, and she promised me she wouldn’t. The feeling of that day still rolls around so sweet in my memory. So joyful.
Sticky sweet molasses joy and the reflection that comes with it, still, of how hopelessly trusting and naive I was. I am sorry, baby me, for thinking that was real.
I found moments of my own anger. Big and cumbersome, like I was trying on a pair of my mother’s dress shoes, clomping and stumbling. Anger showed up in sneaky little ways, usually aimed at myself – sticking myself with safety pins, banging my head against the wall until the dull throbbing lulled me to sleep.
But there was a day – a weekend day – when the storm of my mother came. A hurricane of pain with no end in sight. Just eyes of storms and then the storms – again and again and again. Even my imaginary animal friends quit. Everything quit.
I snuck into my mother’s room during one of the eyes with scissors. I cut up her stuffed animals. I yelled at them, tore the ears off. Cut another’s ear off. The ripppp a satisfying sound. The slivers of fake fur in my hand. In my head, I remember thinking – I am ruining her toys – but then she and I will fix them together. She will understand my pain. My hurt. And will fix these together, and it will be fixed forever.
I really believed that. WHY did I believe that? Where did that thought even come from? I was 8.
When I showed her what I did – proud – proud of my job….Finally PROUD…. She sobbed. Bent over the toys. Wailing loudly. Looking at my bruised face, the dried blood on my nose, crying at what I did. She cried for so long and so loudly; I imagined she was laughing. The big gulping sounds almost sounded like laughter.
I stood there as she called me a monster. As she sob-laughed out questions of how I could do such a thing. How could I do this. How could I do this to her.
A monster.
My animal friends never returned after that day. Neither did the animal play time with my mother.
It was just one workday after another. Year after year.
Until one day, I packed up a few of my own stuffed animals. My favorite pair of shoes. A few books. And left.