I haven't kept really good records of the past 3 years. I have only one book of journals from all that time. Half of it is in a book that starts with my pregnancy and return to Buffalo after leaving my job in Elmira in 2010. The book is full of 2011 up to 2013. The most recent book start a week before mom died in April 2013.
Much of this can be explained with simple parenting. I had Bri in Feb of 2011. It was a long birth. I wrote about it in a previous entry on my other blog. I can copy a reprint into this one. The recounting is just that, no room for reflection or feeling.
My birth experience was less than ideal but better than it would have been if I had had a traditional doctor. I know I would have ended up escalated to surgery if I had stayed with the OBS we had started with. The midwife was fantastic and patient. The birth left me feeling exhausted obviously, but also really disappointed. I really didn't want to go to the hospital and it took a long time to stop feeling like I failed somehow. I guess I totally fell for that mumbo jumbo about natural birth and orgasmic birth. It is better but my brain wouldn't let me let go.
I know the reason I wasn't dilating on some level was because I didn't want to. Bri started coming 4 weeks too soon. At first I was scared she would be too small and not ready. Totally not the case. She was full sized. Must have been the the daily meal of eggs I was eating. I wasn't ready. I wanted to keep her inside me a little longer. I was expecting a few more weeks before she came and I think psychologically I really needed that time.
Part of me was just afraid. I don't have a lot of faith in the world as a whole and I couldn't stand the idea of her leaving me and getting hurt. Or just the idea of her leaving me. I wrote a letter to her in the old journal:
"From the moment you were born you've been moving away from me. Each day, one roll, one crawl away. I hold close those times when you cuddle on my lap and put your head against my chest and sleep. Sometimes you look up at me and it's the sweetest thing, it cuts." (10/23/2011)
I know growing up is part of the way things are and I'll get used to it. But at the moment of birthing her, I really wanted to hang on. My conscious mind would not let go and so my cervix didn't dilate. We were fighting against each other. She was ready and I was holding her back. It still happens occasionally.
After the birth my experience was really rough. Breastfeeding was a horrible struggle and at one point even hubbie wanted to go get formula just so I could get some sleep. I was exhausted I didn't know what I was saying or even doing sometimes. And then I'd erupt. As much as I loved her, I resented the loss of freedom, sleep, showering, eating, or anything I used to be able to just do and not have to worry about another person. I felt trapped. I had been planning her entry into my life since I was 19 but I resented it. The change I had to make to take care of this helpless person.
I resented my hubbie because he seemed to so easily be able to walk away. Of course he couldn't breastfeed her. I started pumping so he could feed her at night so I could get more sleep. That helped to take the edge off and I started to feel a little more human. He had a job to take him out of the house and I lost all connection to any friend I had. There were maybe four visits from friends that first 12 months. Taking her out was a pain. She would just cry and I'd get so worked up it wasn't worth it. I didn't do breastfeeding in public because I wasn't out in public.
Dad died that summer when Bri was only a few months old. We had to cart her to mom's house and stop to breastfeed on the way. Stop to eat for ourselves. A 5 and half hour trip took about 7. Dad got to see her before he died but it didn't seem to phase him. It didn't phase many in the family. We had a large gathering around Easter before he died and the only ones interested in her were two of my aunts, mom and grandma.
Aunt Hilda and Bruce and Dad were completely unfazed. Mom was in and out of it. She kept coddling the dog and would sometimes ignore Bri in favor of the dog.
In a way it ticked me off, the way certain members of the family ignored her. It struck a nerve. She was getting the same treatment from them that I had gotten as a kid. Definitely a nerve was hit. But how could I expect anything else? It's not like they had had any epiphany that would lead them to treat me and others differently.
A few months later when Dad died we met up with that branch of the family again. This time there were more people and so there was more interest in her. I felt much more vibrant by then. It's ironic that on the day of dad's funeral I was happier than I had ever been. I also got more attention than I had ever gotten from that family. Bri got a lot of squealing and cooing. I have some video but for some reason the audio didn't engage so it's silent but in color at least. That was the last time I saw grandma alive so I was really upset for a while after reviewing the film and finding it silent. I got over it. I supposed it's better than nothing.
(One really interesting thing that happened, really creeped my hubbie out. When the baby started crying all of the women in the room went "Awww" in full chorus. I don't think he had ever heard that before like that. It scared him. The same thing happened at mom's funeral reception when he carried her in in her little sun dress. A full chorus of coos exploded and he said he actually had a moment of freezing in place and wanting to run out like he needed to protect her. Being female, I'm familiar with this kind of occurrence and so it's already a part of my gender culture. It didn't freak me out but made me feel a part of something, this female experience.)
Mourning for dad started in 2008 when he was diagnosed with brain cancer. I tried to reach out to him emotionally once again. He avoided all talk of affection and hung up quickly. Even now I think what I miss the most is what could have been. I have all this anger toward his indifference and his resentment and bullying that I need to process. How much easier would this all have been if I could just have had that closure and healing while he was alive? But again, what did I expect? There hadn't been any confrontation or spiritual awakening that could have rectified our 30 years of issues.
Besides, why should I have to do all the work. I'm the kid. It's the parents' responsibility to nurture the relationship and teach the kids how to nurture relationships. Kids are ignorant from birth and need to be taught how social connections and affection works. My parents failed in this. Dad especially but in some significant ways, mom failed as well.
So it's not him I miss. I never really new the man. Only the disappointment and verbal attacks. It's all the potential that was in my head. All those times healing could have occurred, including that huge outburst I had years ago before I met Tom.
After the funeral mom wanted us to stay another day. She didn't want us to leave so soon. We were only planning to stay two nights. Bri wasn't sleeping well in a strange room and the energy of the past was echoing in my head and messing with my balance, not that I had much after the birth and returning to my home town.
Anyone who is energy sensitive who has driven up there with me has noticed right around Canton, I get really tense and the energy around me gets anxious and spiky. My shields go up.
Sometimes I wonder if she was looking for a buffer from my brother. I wonder if she new he was going to start working her over now that dad was gone. Dad was always a shield, even if a poor one, for my mother. He would do all the screaming at my bro and make the decisions as to what my bro would get and when. With him gone, she was left to defend herself. She never let on that she was afraid or nervous or that her relationship with either of them was rocky. Given my history in that house I should have known. But I let her talk me into believing he was getting better and doing well.
It wasn't until much later that I was told what was really going on. How my bro went through not only 60K on his inheritance that she kept and doled out monthly checks, but an additional 15K above his inheritence, plus two new cars in less than 2 years, all of his mortgage and utility bills, plus petty cash. In that time mom lost almost 200K to him when the bills are totaled up and her account became overdrawn from the check fraud.
So mom bought us a car in order to get one more day with us. She didn't need to do that. It feels yucky that she felt like she needed to bribe me to stay. We could have stayed another day if she had just asked. If she had said she was lonely or sad and just wanted another day with me and the baby, we would have stayed without the bribe. Dealing with my brother must have thought love needed to be bought.
I didn't stay away from the house because I didn't care about her. There were too many angry and sobbing ghosts in that house. Too many fights, too many echos of who I was as a child and a teenager crying myself to sleep way too many nights. Feeling like an alien, unwanted and hated by people who are supposed to love you and have your back. I did resent her a bit for not sticking up for me. I can only guess why she didn't have the strength to do it. She couldn't stand up to dad. Maybe she felt financially dependent on him, just got used to being taken care of, really believed divorce was a sin or at least that she had failed as a woman in some way. She had to keep up appearances and pretend to be happy, even pretend to have the upper hand like the mother in My Big Fat Greek Wedding.
Power is not real when you have to manipulate someone else's power in order to manifest your own.
And dad did his share enabling her alcohol addiction. I think he ignored it most of the time. I know he pleaded her case the last year of her teaching with the board to get her into therapy and then to make sure she was paid for the four weeks she took off to go to therapy plus making it count to her pension. I don't think he ever confronted her on it or pleaded for her to stop. She was functional. There was no reason to. Of course I don't know what he did when I wasn't there and I don't know what he was thinking.
I stayed away from that house because of him, because of my bro and because of the pain that just seemed to vibrate from all the surfaces in the house. It physically hurt to be there. I'm not an empath in any remarkable sense but when every atom in a house is screaming out, you can't shield all of it away.
Bri picked up on it too and we were sure that was why she couldn't sleep there. Plus were were staying in my parent's room, the master bedroom. That echoed of an unhappy marriage. We thought of staying in a hotel like we had during Easter, but I thought it would be good for mom to have someone physically in the house with her after dad was gone. The emptiness would get to her. I'm sure it did after we left.
But besides prickling with negative energy and bad memories mom was starting to get to me. She was kinda batty. She'd forget things, and do loopy stuff. Like looking for the dog in the baby's room when we had just put her down for her bedtime and wake her up. I'd have to go through the whole tucking her in again. The dog had been outside the whole time. Part of me knew she was sick then but I didn't know what it all meant until I finally got a doctor to tell the whole truth while she was in the hospital.
We did stay the extra day and bought a car we're not entirely happy with but it made mom happy. She was determined that we would get rid of the Jimmy which was over ten years old and had no air conditioning. She said the car was for the baby. Her granddaughter would have air conditioning.
As it turned out, she may have had another one of her psychic moments. There was an accident on the 90 around the time we would have been passing through there and traffic was at a stand still with 95 degree heat. Bri would have been fit to be tied in a situation like that.
Mom has always had these moments of divine inspiration. When she was sober she was amazing.
Hubbie was a bit freaked. He doesn't come from money like my family. We weren't rich but we always were comfortable and went on vacations every summer. When I mentioned it to him he got really quiet and rolled his eyes. He might not have realized at first that she wasn't offering a down payment and we wouldn't have to deal with car payments for the next five years. The Jimmy had been paid off for a while so we were enjoying not having that. Her writing a check for over 30K for the car at the dealership the next day didn't really phase me. It might have shaken him up a bit. He refused to drive the thing for a while.
I laughed it off. We just come from different backgrounds. Money wasn't a big deal with my parents. They were careful and invested and saved well for retirement. Hubbie and I will not be able to do the same with one income and the economy as it is currently.
I don't recall going back to visit at Christmas in 2011. We had planned to go up new years in 2012-2013 but that's when mom went into the hospital so those plans were boshed. We stayed away in 2012 but I called her when I could. The calls became less often.
She did come to visit us in the summer of 2012. Mrs. Wanzer brought her up and we played with Bri and watched an old black and white movie.
The last few years of her life I felt really awkward with her. There was this huge distance that we couldn't really separate. Hugging her felt really half-hearted. I don't know if she was conscious of the physical change in her body and how thin and frail she had gotten. She didn't want to hug me tightly like she used to to try to hide her physical state? I don't know. Maybe it reflected the secrets she was keeping? When she was here we just didn't have anything to talk about. It just felt really strange. Mrs. Wanzer came to pick her up and that was the last time I saw her mentally with it and functional.
I think she knew she was dying at that point and knew it would be soon. I think she wanted something from me but I don't know what it was. I think I failed her somehow that last visit. I'm not an empath. You usually have to hit me pretty hard over the head to get a message through to me. She was just so good at pretending everything was perfect that I just couldn't see through that facade.
It's like these movies where there's always some spiritual connection made or deep emotional revelation the grows and bursts and everyone in the theater is crying and taking something deeply personal away with them. We didn't have that moment. Maybe that was what she was looking for. I'm more than able and willing to have a moment like that I just didn't know to look for it in that particular moment. I forgot she was mortal.
I took it for granted there would be other times for connection and evolution.
And after everything that has happened this past decade, I should have known better.
I'm still learning that lesson repeatedly and too late.
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