Mean to My Mother

Mean to my mother.

October 16

Saturday Charlotte drove down to Myrtle Beach, South Carolina to live. That means she’s doesn’t live here anymore.  Even though she left her 600 piece shot glass collection, her 45 purses, her stack of periwinkle blue pillows, her bathroom full of every kind of lotion, face cream, lipstick, etc. etc. She is gone. 

I didn’t call her in the morning. I didn’t call her at lunch. I almost called her at one o’clock. And then I patted myself on the back for not “stalking” her as she put it…and I figured  that since I managed to not make those earlier calls I had earned the right to call her.  And of course all I got was her voice mail.

Yesterday she left me a message that she was glad she was there and she missed me. But today already she doesn’t miss me, she doesn’t have her phone on so I can talk to her, she doesn’t call and she’s moved on. 

But it’s O.K. I’m O.K Because all I have to do is think back to my mother and how she let me go... all  the way to Paris, all the way to New York, and never said a word…something that always drove me crazy.

(I had turned off the radio to write this. Now I have to turn it on again…WCBS news …I need someone talking in the background otherwise I feel lonely. And that’s the last thing I want to feel because there’s not much I can do about it.. As many phone calls as  I’ve had today…as many good friends as I can count on to listen to me…I always have to hang up the phone and then there is silence and that’s a reminder that I am alone. Yikes.

I was so mean to my mother. She was so sweet. So giving. Or rather, so sacrificing. Always doing, doing, doing for me. Stop doing, I wanted scream. Stop caring. Stop patting me with little soft hands. Pat, pat, pat. So soft and smooshy. She was such a  a push-over. My father was hard-edged and selfish. And he got everything he wanted. And Mom got hardly anything. I wanted to be like him not her.

And yet OMG, I just realized that I am like my mother with my daughter. There’s  nothing I won’t do for her.  I am a push over. I am so soft-handed and smooshy with her.  And I find myself wanting to  do, do, do.