I’m taking a class later this month entitled, “CREATING A VIBRANT FUTURE WITH OUR PARENTS AND FOR OURSELVES”. It’s being taught by a 30+ year mid-life specialist. I guess that qualifies me eh? Lol.
So, a large part of my days have been spent facing things I normally avoid, not realizing how many freakin problems and stress I create for myself unnecessarily. My goal this week was to pick one thing, and one thing only to face head on without turning the other way. Hence me taking this class so that I can learn about and develop a plan for taking care of my mom in her older days. I felt a twinge of fear when I read the heading because I knew that her struggles with her health and mental well-being would only increase and get worse over time.
You haven’t heard me talk much about my family because it’s a pretty sensitive topic. On the real, shyt can be really phuked up sometimes and I feel like I’m the parent and sole person responsible for a 50 year old mom and a 20 year old brother that has no real example of what a black man should be. These two people have caused me so much stress, anger and at times loss in my own life that I have totally detached myself emotionally and in a lot of ways physically from them. I’m not sure if I can ever get the emotional and paternal connection with my mom back. I care for her, but I can’t remember the last time I hugged her for real for real. There’s a numbness there.
My sense of family is kinda phuked up. I pretty much keep to myself, me and my daughters, and we make moves as a unit together. Just us. I’m the one that could really care less about getting together on holidays or birthdays or whatever because that shyt really doesn’t mean anything to me. I’d much rather be doing something else. A ‘holiday’ is just another day. I know all of this comes from somewhere but I never really asked myself why I didn’t get excited when the opportunity to gather as a family group came about. That could be a number of reasons…
Perhaps it’s because I have no real sense of home really? I don’t even claim Atlanta as my native spot despite me being here for so long. I was born on a military base in NC, my dad was a gunnery Sgt and I think the Marines made him phukin crazy lol (in a funny way). I know nothing about my birth place let alone where it is. We spent my entire childhood moving around the country and abroad. Kicking it for 6 months to a year, and then we’d be out. Anyone I’d even begun to call friend became an instant memory, only with them you couldn’t add water and stir it with a spoon to make it all fluid again. They were gone forever. I wasn’t close to my dad, and the things I did see of him where things no black girl should ever see in the home but, whatever. My mom was no saint either and whom I often times feel was the catalyst in the majority of their battles. Regardless, I honestly don’t feel like I can pick up the phone and rely on them to be there for me when I need them…even if it’s just getting a break from the kids or an ear to listen. I remember one time I got drunk and sent my pops a long email just talking about my life and what was going on. About the men I’d dated, his granddaughters that don’t know him, and just random shyt about the drama that my mom’s and lil bro were going through. At the end I put, “Just thought you might like to know how your old family was doing.” Nevertheless, I feel as though I have no safety net in family. I fall, oh well. Do you know how scary it is to live your life feeling like you have no foundation of support?
Regardless of that reason and the others I won’t get into, I am who I am. And now I am faced with the haunting reality that I’m going to have to make sure my mom is straight and that this is kinda urgent. I need to start putting these things in order now so she’s not stuck in some home somewhere wallowing in her own poop for days. Not gonna happen. It’s scary because both she and my brother depend on me so much. Too much. My mom emotionally a lot of times. Sometimes she just calls to talk to me about whatever and I’m just holding the phone. I give her more life advice than she does me! She tells people I’m her best friend and I wanna say, “I’m not your phukin best friend so stop telling people that crap!” How shyty of me to think that huh? I have four children and no best friend anywhere in that equation. Some days I don’t even answer my phone because I know somebody needs something and honestly I don’t feel like helping anyone with shyt anymore. The last time I sacrificed space in my home, my time and my money they phuked me over and did it raw. It was affecting me and my girls so adversely that I had to step away.
Yes, we all go through things as a family but with mine and those two, it’s a vicious cycle. It’s like they act first, think later, and then call on me to clean up the messes they’ve made. It’s been this way all of my life with my mom especially. All is cool, then it’s not, and then you are made out to be the bad person because you had to draw the line, even though you were the only mofo that was around to help their asses when the griddle got hot. Then, when the iron cools down…they’re happy again and want to come around and spend time with me and the girls like everything is cool. What the FUCK! I can forgive all day, but when you do the same shyt so many times how can I forget? Because of this I have become emotionally withdrawn from the both of them for my own sake and well being. I have an issue with that and to me it’s abusive when it turns into a cycle that has run rampant all of my life.
I think that this last incident that spanned the course of 6 long months with my mother, father and brother has really put me in a place where I’ve pulled the plug and have said phuk it. But how can you do that when it’s ‘Family’? As much as I want to be left alone they still show up unannounced at my crib at 9am or want to hang out ‘just because’. At this point I want to be done but I can’t. Both of them rely on me so heavily that it’s upsetting and the stress kills me at times. My attempts to break away don’t do much good when they know how to find me and how to get into my gate even if I don’t answer my phone. Lol. Which leads me to the truth that I, JUST I, will be the sole person responsible for taking care of my mom in an even greater capacity as she gets older. She’s got some serious issues, as we all do, and she’s working on them and I support…but I know that she won’t be in the position to fend for her own when that time comes. If I had loot I’d just buy a house and let her do as she pleased. But that’s not reality. Reality is that I have the worries of two little girls that I’m fending for on my own, and one hitting college in 4 years. My problem is that I want to help everyone I can, but I’ve realized that my generosity has made me a sitting target for manipulation and an easy way out. When I stand up for myself I get shyt from 1999 thrown back in my face topped with a…”Don’t forget where you came from.” I wanna say, “Do you even know where you’re phukin going?”
I’m sure this class will help me put things into perspective and exercise the options that I’ll have when my mom becomes my sole responsibility but…where does that leave me?
The burden is heavy.
-black girl.
