What’s your fondest memory of your mother?

I have very few early memories of my mother. It's not that she wasn't around or that she wasn't attentive when I was a small child. Actually, it was quite the opposite. She was a very nurturing mother. She was always at home with us kids until she finished her degree and started teaching. She cooked all of our meals from scratch. Birthday parties included fresh cakes and pies. She tended a garden throughout the year, where I would spend hours upon hours, picking and eating peas and tomatoes off of vines. The problem is that I don't have much existing memory of these times and most most of the things I can tell you now are either stories I've recited so many times, I've no idea if they are actually accounts from my own memory, or if they are stories handed down to me from friends and relatives. Memories are strange things to begin with, but I lost most of mine during my parents' divorced, when I discovered that so many of the things that I thought were true were only stories my mom had planted in my memory to spite my father and win in the courts.

More recently, I have very few positive memories of Mom. It's hard to create positive encounters with someone so unpredictable. When we're together for any length of time, we fight and argue. Frequently, one of us will leave in tears. The problem is that we both care so much and her mental illness simply doesn't allow us to communicate in any sort of healthy manner. I've learned to work around this over the years, but even the lightest conversation can still turn ugly very quickly.

There was a time, though, when I was truly at my lowest and she was the only one who stood beside me.

I was 20 years old and freshly separated from my ex-husband, Frank. I had left a very abusive marriage in a hurry and all I had to my name were a few articles of clothing and my car, which had only been purchased a few months earlier and I was making payments on. I had been homeless, sleeping in my car, eating off of $1 menus, and showering anywhere a friend would let me. I had a full-time retail job, but in the confusion of abandoning my marriage, my finances were a mess and many bills went ignored. I was in survival mode and I didn't have the first clue as to how I was going to put the pieces of my life back together. Just when I thought I had hit rock bottom and things appeared to be looking up (a friend and I had rented an apartment and I was negotiating retrieving the rest of my possessions from Frank), my car was repossessed and I was fired from my job. Without means of transportation in a large city that doesn't believe in reliable public transit to search for another job and no job to get my car back from the bank, I was facing eviction. I went to the DES office, only to be turned away for food stamps, despite my need. I was completely broke, and exhausted, and hungry, and depressed. I hawked the only possessions of value I had, my wedding dress and wedding ring, and sat there looking at the $80 it brought me with utter despair.

The next day I called Mom. In the months that followed the day I left Frank, she was the only one who believed everything I told her about the abuse and the pain. She didn't have any way of empathizing, of course, but just the fact that she didn't require any proof of my need to leave was enough. I told her how bad everything had become. I knew she didn't have much, but maybe she could help me figure out how to get on my feet again. We met over the course of the next few days. It was an excruciatingly humiliating time for me. She wanted me to account for every cent I spent and I had to show her all my outstanding bills, the eviction notice, and my bank statements. She insisted I must have something else I could sell, something that could pay the rent,  but there was nothing and the more times I had to go back over my finances and show her how little I was (net) worth, the more I just wished for death to take me and end my suffering.

Within a week, she was convinced of just how bad off I was and she called me to set up a Federal Union transfer of $1200 to the bank that owned my car, so that I could get it back before auction and try to stay afloat. In that time, my friend and I cleared out of the apartment, accepting the eviction, and moved into the living room of some mutual friends of ours who had recently bought a house. I have no doubt that $1200 saved my life. I honestly don't know where or how she came up with the money and I will never ask, but it was her one time gift to me that got me out of the gutter and there isn't anything in the world I could give to her that would even scratch the surface of the gratitude I feel for her for that.

Were there any issues that were always a source of tension between you and your mother?

I can't think of any issues that weren't a source of tension between my mother and I.

She was always looking for reasons to believe I was getting into trouble behind her back. She tapped our phone and recorded my conversations. She interrogated my friends at every opportunity. She tried to read ulterior motives in everything I said or did.

This is not to say I wasn't a troublemaker; I was. I was a deeply troubled youth, who sought solace in pot smoking and friends. The kind of trouble I was getting into was far below the radar of most who knew me. I wasn't dishonest, at least I wasn't until she forced me to lie about my behavior, and I had no interest in getting into any real trouble, but she insisted I was up to no good.

During my parents' divorce, I was ordered into family counselling by the court. Mom brought in all these tapes of phone conversations I'd had with various friends, talking about any number of things. There was a particular series of conversations between my friend Don and I that had her completely convinced I was some kind of a junkie. The reality was that Don was going through a Type O Negative phase and wanted a vial (~5cc) of my blood to wear around his neck. I agreed, seeing no harm in it. Actually, I was pretty flattered by the notion. The counselor refused to to hear the tapes and threatened to bar my mom from any further sessions if she tried to bring "evidence" like that in again. Furthermore, Don's step-father, a lawyer, threatened my mom with civil suit if she ever recorded his step-son in any capacity ever again.

Another time, Mom took me and my best friend to her boyfriend's apartment for a bbq and swimming. I resisted at first because her boyfriend was a total douchebag, but I acquiesced when I was allowed to bring my friend. After four or five hours of hamburgers and swimming, it was getting dark and Mom rounded us up to take my friend home. Once that was done, she took me on a route that was obviously nowhere near our house, so I asked her where we were going. "Don't worry," she said. "It will only take a minute." Twenty minutes later, we arrived in front of the outpatient wing of CHARTER, a teen substance abuse facility. I was livid with her insinuation, but thought it best to just get it over with.

After I was checked in, I was led to a counselor's office for a formal assessment. There was no reason for me to put up a fight about this, however much I wanted to. The more honest I was, the faster I could get out of there and it quickly occurred to me that I might be able to send up a flag for help for my mom at some point during the meeting. The counselor and I talked for about half an hour and he gave me the same line all of the court appointed professionals gave me. "You're a very well-adjusted young lady. I believe you'll do well with anything you put your mind to." Blah, blah, blah...

After all of that, he sent me out into a waiting area, where I flipped through magazines and nearly fell asleep while he spoke with my mother for well over an hour. He finished with her and then called us both in to give us the "I believe family counseling would be your best course of action" speech. I'd heard it all before. It was the same song and dance every single time I talked to one of these people. The only difference this time was that the poor guy actually wanted to help me, but there was too much legal red tape to cut through before he could really do anything and he was just a substance abuse counselor. What I needed, what Mom needed was far out of his depth.

He released my mom from his office and asked me to stay for only a moment. He handed me a referral, along with a handful of apologies for my situation, and told me that I should talk my mom into seeking help. He said that family counseling was likely the only way I'd get her into a psychiatrist's office, but that he saw how difficult my situation was and he was concerned about the number of red flags she'd sent up, so I should try any way I could to get her the help she needs.

That was the first time in my life I had known what it felt like to be vindicated.

I thanked the doctor and hurried out the door, lest Mother get suspicious of our conversation. I never did get her into counselling, but I carried that referral on yellow transfer paper around in my wallet for years afterward. It was a physical reminder that there were people in the world who would stand with me.

It was much later that I had found out why Mom had taken me to CHARTER. A month or so before our little side trip, I had asked mom if I could have one of my friend Anita's kittens. Anita had a cat that had a litter of six and she was trying to find homes for them, rather than take them all to the pound. Apparently, Mom took this as a sure sign I was sexually active and that I was wanting to get pregnant and have a baby.

I was 14 years old.

After I stopped laughing at such a notion, I realized it didn't matter what I did. She would always look for ways to "fix" me. I wasn't even a person to her anymore, because I had started coming into my own and I wasn't the porcelain doll she thought she had groomed me to be.

So yes, there was plenty of tension between my mother and I; so much, in fact, you needed a diamond blade saw to slice it.

Did your mother have any unfulfilled dreams or regrets that you were aware of?

Mom never talked about any aspirations, dreams, or regrets, at least not that I can recall. I think she wanted to be an aristocrat. Her family definitely had the money, but being farmers, they weren't refined in their ways. When my siblings and I were growing up, we were always pressed and pleated just so, every hair in place and the corners of our mouths wiped clean for presentation. We were taught to be seen and not heard, unless we were asked to display our charming manners or brilliant intellects. We were groomed as dolls and performers. Our life was a perpetual tea party for the public eye, even though at home was quite a different picture.

Mom liked being a trophy, I think. She always wanted others to be impressed by her abilities and her life. As the wife of a Baptist pastor, she would greet the members of the congregation with beaming face and perfect grace. She idolized Jackie Onassis in those days. She organized potlucks and parties that would make the church ladies "ooh" and "ah" over her imaginative decorations and her perfect presentation. She would have fit in beautifully, had we lived in Stepford.

As I mentioned before, we children were her accessories. My twin sisters were dressed and treated alike in every way, much to their resentment. My brothers raised as perfect masculine figures. They were given every benefit of being raised in a patriarchal home. By the time I was old enough for school, my siblings were already moved out of the house and on their own, so I was left as the remaining pet for my mother to preen. I was dressed in white button-down blouses with wool plaid skirts or, for church  and parties, I had a large collection of frilly pink and white dresses, each with its own matching pair of bloomers. For special occasions, There were at least one or two princess-like gowns in my closet, but these only came out for pictures, Christmas, weddings, and funerals. Each of these outfits were coordinated with a pair of white tights and either white or black patent leather shoes, depending on the season.

When Dad moved out, mom was a mess. She had lost the arm she clung to. She still maintained the act, despite the fact she was no longer the trophy. Days dragged on, one after the other, and she slowly became more and more depressed. Many times, she wouldn't even bother getting out of bed. She was a poor housekeeper under the best of circumstances, the only exception being when company was expected and on those days every corner of the house was made to sparkle, but during her depression, she stopped cleaning altogether and she hoarded things like newspapers and magazine articles in knee-high piles on the floor.

But I digress.

Mom never fulfilled her dream of being a storybook princess and I think she regrets not having the wherewithal to have stolen her own portion of the family fortune, such as her brother and sister did.

But that's a story for another day.

What are the three most important life lessons that you learned from your mother?

As discussed previously, my mom just isn't very good at doing things on any sort of normal human level. Thinking about the life lessons she's taught me brings to mind plentiful scenarios in which she did precisely the opposite of what any person with reasoning ability and a pinch of empathy would do. This brings me to the most important life lesson I've learned from my mom:

1. Even bad examples are worth learning from.
   
   There were times when we'd go without when it was just Mom and I in that house. She worked hard and did her best, but her priorities were all wrong.  She worked two jobs and I was a latchkey kid. Frequently, she'd pick me up from school, dash through a drive-thru with a Dollar Menu, and drop me off at home, with no time to spare before she needed to be at her other job, usually temp work for adult education, such as GED and program placement testing. I'd get home, do as much homework as I could keep my focus on, which admittedly wasn't much, call friends, and sit outside with a book and a cigarette to watch the sun set. Living "alone" as a pre-teen sounds pretty glamorous, but there were definite issues. Mom had stopped grocery shopping a long time ago. This posed problems when She didn't have time to run through Taco Bell for my dinner. Throughout the week, I'd steal pocket change from her, $2 here or $5 there, so that I could walk to the local convenience store for dinner. There was an outside chance I'd be invited to dinner at a friend's house once in awhile and those opportunities were taken with deep gratitude, but mostly, I was on my own.
   
   Money became tighter as time went on. One summer, we went entirely without electricity, because Mom had spent all of her paychecks on a new wardrobe for work. It goes without saying that Arizona summers are hot, but sitting through one without air conditioning was dreadful. I'd sleep in my underwear on sheets that I'd soak in the bathroom sink. The evaporation kept me cool enough to sleep through the night, but just barely. I'd stay after school as long as possible or linger around other air conditioned places as long as they'd let me, before going home and entering the oven I called home.
   
   I know she did her best and I am grateful to have had a roof over my head and clothes on my back, but I was fully aware that I was not being given the chance at childhood that my friends took for granted. While I longed for a different life, I was dedicated and determined to keep my mom above the sinkhole she was creating for herself and it was when I realized that I was doing her job for her, that I also realized that she had given me all I needed to be a strong, independent woman--I just had to avoid her bad example.
   
2. Love hurts.
   
   Taking care of my mom was a difficult balance. I had to go through the motions of adolescence, finish school, act like a normal enough child to retain a few friends for sanity's sake, keep Mom's schedule for her, find productive outlets for myself and make room in my mom's schedule for them, keep mom together enough emotionally to get her through each day, and then keep as much of my self-respect intact as possible, while I took the blame for absolutely everything that went wrong in and outside of our home. I was a perpetual whipping boy (girl?) for everything that distressed or disrupted my mother in any way. Each day I'd get yelled at because she was running late and I hadn't helped her to get ready sooner. Each night I'd get yelled at because she was stressed out and I was the nearest victim. It seemed that every moment in between was filled with more blame and more hurt, over and over and over again, every single day.
   
   We had good moments, of course, but they came few and far between. We'd go to the dollar movies or to the park and have a good day of it. The relief was always welcome, but it never lasted long. She was so wrapped up in her own world, I'm certain she never noticed how much I'd aged in the few years she and I lived alone. But I was responsible for her. I had to take care of her no matter what, because if I didn't, who would? And I loved her so much, she was still my mom, after all, but while she had me to take care of her, I only had what was leftover at the end of the day to take care of myself and I was soul weary and heart thin. It still hurts to think about the years I lost to that arrangement, but I'm not sure I would change anything if I could go back and do it again. I was there when she needed me most and that is all that matters.
   
3. It's okay to love someone from a distance.
   
   We were never good at the whole mother/daughter thing. Our roles became blurred and we almost constantly battled for power. I learned that I couldn't live with Mom, or even stay in the same room with her, for any amount of time if I valued my sanity and my self-respect. However, she had given me a lot. I was a determined young woman. I had unusual confidence and was well-spoken. I could handle stressful situations, even talk to people in positions of power (e.g. debt collectors, administrative offices, etc.) with relative ease. I knew how to keep myself fed and I was street savvy. I was an active learner of all life had to offer. I owe all of these traits to my mom, for without her I would not have had to learn these things.
   
   So yes, I love my mom, very much in fact, and I have much to be thankful to her for, but that didn't help the guilt I felt when I could no longer take care of her. I had reached a point when I needed to take care of myself and leave her to her own devices. I couldn't take her blame anymore and I couldn't keep getting upset every time she messed up. I had to leave her to take care of herself, because I needed to be me.
   
   The distance from her always had strings attached. I'd always get phone calls from her, begging for help with this or accompany her for that. When I didn't give her what she wanted, she'd always lash out. If she knew where I lived, I'd get unannounced visits. She was always lonely or depressed or desperate about one thing or another. I tried to be passive, but it slowly soured to passive aggressive. I harbored some resentment for the privilege I felt was owed to me. Later though, I came into some situations that I couldn't handle on my own and it was then that she really shined. She kept faith in me and helped me in every way she could. She, of course, made it the most painful and humiliating process possible, but she honestly tried to be the mother I needed her to be and there isn't enough gold on Earth to repay that kindness from her.
   
   I'm nearly 3,500 miles away from her now, but looking back I can see that we both made mistakes. The distance has actually rebuilt our relationship in a way I didn't expect and I have far more tolerance and patience now for her than I ever did before. We can pretend when we talk on the phone that we are just mother and daughter now. We can keep things cordial, even if it means we don't ever have anything more than light conversation. I can love her without reservation for my own well-being, because there's not much she can do to hurt me from so far away and my shoulders are that much lighter, not having to carry her burden.

What trait did you admire the most about your mother?

Mom doesn't have a whole lot of admirable traits. That's not to say that she's a bad person, she just doesn't do things because they are right or good or just for the sake of doing them. She always has an underlying motive. For the most part, I think this is an unconscious thing. She isn't aware that she is as manipulative as she is. She doesn't understand that things can be done because you want to and not because some type of recognition or benefit will be had in the end. I like to think of her egocentricity as that of a 3-year-old, constantly seeking validation and constantly trying to get her own way.

A good example of this was when I was pregnant with my first child, Seren. Mom had invited us down to Phoenix to visit (we lived in Holbrook, AZ at the time), so that we could do some heavy-duty baby shopping. We spent several days there, combing through Babies R Us,  making lists, and discussing what things we thought would be useful. One day while we were looking at crib sets, Mom asked me what I thought about Winnie the Pooh. I explained to her that while the stories are near and dear to me, the commercialization of the series just wasn't something that appealed to me, so I'd just as soon buy something more neutral, than go with any of the Disney-branded paraphernalia. That was the exact moment when the entire mood of the day lost all of its momentum. Later, when we went back to our hotel, we discovered that Mom had bought several hundred dollars worth of baby gear and left it for us to find in our room. Among the items, was a Winnie the Pooh crib set. I called mom and told her how much I appreciated everything, and that it was all just perfect, and that I couldn't wait to get it all home and set it up. Before I could address the crib set, she insisted in her most despondent voice that I could take it back and exchange it for a different one. Of course, this wouldn't do. I have to apologise for leading her to believe I wouldn't like it and convince her of how appreciative I was that she thought so well to buy it for us. The moral of this story is that every question Mom asks is loaded and should be handled as if her feelings are at stake, because they frequently are.

When I think of what trait I admire most about my mom, there are always exceptions like this one that come to mind, but I think what I really admire most about her is her undying faith in me. Every time I was in a situation where my world was collapsing around me, she was there to help in any way she could, even if it meant going without, herself. Even if we weren't good at being mother and daughter, even if we couldn't stand being in the same room together, even when she had nothing to give, she's always been there, believed me, and helped me to my feet.

When I think about my own children, I often fear becoming the person I know my mom to be. I strive to be a better parent in almost every way and I want earn the respect of my children, something I never truly had for my mom until I was much older. However, the one trait I strive to emulate is her commitment to caring for her children. It's in those rare, lucid moments that she truly shines as the beautiful woman I know she can be.

Where was your mother born?

My mom's name is Norma, but everyone calls her Jeannie. She was born in Phoenix, Arizona March 14, 1943 to a rodeo cowboy and his wife. Mom was the oldest of six children, five of whom still survive, and was named after her father, Norman. She was raised on the dairy farm in Tolleson, Arizona my grandparents bought with money scraped and saved from my grandfather's rodeo days.

She used to tell me stories of growing up on the farm. It seemed to me there were nothing but chores in her stories: feeding cows, milking cows, feeding calves, branding calves, castrating bulls, feeding chickens, plucking chickens, feeding horses, breaking horses, training horses, tilling fields, planting crops, harvesting crops, and on, and on, and on. Somewhere between all the work a farm requires, there were also stories of waterholes for swimming, playing in the sun, eating Sunday dinner, and arguing with siblings. I always pictured her as a sort of character from Huckleberry Finn with skinned knees, dirty face, and hand-sewn hand-me-down clothes.

My aunts and uncles speak of my mom as the sensitive child, always needy and always complaining. This seems completely appropriate to me, as Mom is still all of those things to differing degrees. Mom was a lovely young woman, shapely and leggy, dark hair, blue eyes, and pale, lightly freckled skin. I can't bear to think about the type of guy she might have dated in high school or the kind of high-maintenance girlfriend I can only assume she was. She has a confident air about her, but she rarely makes decisions on her own and refuses to take responsibility for her own actions. This is not to say she isn't a good person, she just strikes me as a woman who relied too long on her looks to get through her life. In fact, she is a very loving, considerate person; she just has misguided values.

Mom helped to raise her siblings, the youngest of which are only a few years older than my own sisters. She has mothering in her bones and teaching in her blood. She was a homemaker for most of her life. Having married a pastor, she dedicated herself to raising her children to be perfect doll-like creatures, who were as charming and delightful as she pretended to be. It wasn't until much later, the early 1980s in fact, that she took herself to college and earned a teaching degree. And why wouldn't she do just that? Every female in her line, for as long as is documented, have been nurses or teachers, including all three of her sisters.

Getting Started

I've been thinking of writing an autobiography for at least 15 years, but if I'm to be honest from the get go, I should admit right here that I am lazy and unmotivated. Even now that I've gone to all the trouble of starting this blog with the express purpose of examining the details of my life, I'm being lazy. I don't even want to go to the effort of thinking of my own subjects to write about, so the next 175ish posts in this blog will be based on this list of prompts I randomly came across. Don't expect me to post frequently or even regularly; I suck at that. Quite frankly, it will come if and when it comes, in my own good time, because fuck you. This is my story. This is the unbelievably true story of me.