In Reply To Peter Parkour &/or My Twisted Mommie Dearest

Today’s blog entry shall entail my response to the beloved Peter Parkour, who continues to read my rantings and comment upon them, which means more than he knows.  This man is a philosopher, a deep thinker, a profound dude.  Check out his blog at www.hateandanger.wordpress.com

Peter’s comment on yesterday’s blog entry follows:

I read this last night and I’ve been contemplating how to comment ever since.  I keep coming back to the same answer each time.  I hope what I have to say doesn’t come across too abrasive, because it comes from the heart and I want nothing but the best for you.

I had a revelation not too long ago.  Monsters aren’t born; they’re created.  They didn’t want to be monsters.  Life led them down a path to monster-hood.  That doesn’t make it ok for them to be monsters, but it does help me to understand how they got to where they are.

If I can’t forgive a monster, at least I have somewhat of an understand of the monster.  Instead of hating the monsters I can pity them.  This in no way makes the actions of a monster ok.  No one deserves to suffer at the hands of a monster.

All monsters need help. Some need to be detained from society, but we need to learn from all of them. Instead of punishing monsters we need to treat them and work toward preventing others from being created in the first place. This is coming from a recovering monster.

Comedy, humor and satire are still great outlets for the performer and the audience, but hate only hurts the hater.  I ran into a quote recently that would work well here: “Bitterness and Resentment are like taking poison then waiting for the OTHER person to die”.

I love you Pam.  Take care.  (((((HUGS)))))

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Peter, you are THE BEST for continuing to read my drivel and leave comments, this one in particular.  I especially love your line about monsters, although I can’t imagine you as one.

How interesting that we had a family drama today that resulted in my speaking with my mother for about an hour just within the last few minutes, before I knew your comment was here.  As I spoke with her I found myself thinking about how civil our conversations usually are, which is not how I ever sound when I write about her.

Although I’m angry and vent it here, there has rarely been a time when I didn’t at least give my mother basic respect, probably even deference.  I do feel sorry for her and that kicks my ass most of all.  First I had to have this woman as my mother and then suffer the mixed emotions of pity and guilt and disgust.

I agree with everything you said 1,000% and I use this philosophy in my daily life with everyone I know.  I make all kinds of what others call “excuses” for people, and I think of it as my way of understanding why people do what they do and act the way they do.

My niece, for instance . . . I will never blame her more than 50% for what has happened with her children because I believe she was not given what she needed as a chld and the opportunity to bond with her children was stolen from her when she went to prison.  Yes, she chose to take drugs, but it was as a result of pain that she didn’t choose. She became her nuclear family’s scapegoat.

My sister, I do the same for.  She was never given the love and attention from others that I received and it didn’t allow her to give my niece what she needed because she never got it herself.

I psychoanalyze myself, my children, my friends, my loved ones and always have a reason why we do what we do.  For at least half my life ”To know all is to forgive all” has been my motto. I did it with people I had on my probation caseload.  I am TOO MUCH this way quite often.  I can be ridiculously co-dependent.  Except when it comes to my mother.

I can remember a time when I loved her.  I remember crying when I would go to my father’s for the weekend and had to leave her.  I remember watching her put on makeup and admiring her in the mirror as she told me if she ever died I’d have to put it on for her so she’d look good in the casket (what the fuck?).  I was about 7 then.

I remember a car accident and a bicycle accident where she was the person who took charge once she got there.  I remember thinking I was glad she was so forceful and that she wasn’t crazy when bad things happened.  Suddenly she would morph into a person who handled emergencies so well.

In a lot of ways I was a favored child in our household, probably just a step down from my brother.  Because I was the oldest, or maybe because I was a girl and no dummy, she knew I was judging her and not finding her satisfactory.  She wanted to be seen as superior.  She has never had female friends and didn’t know how to handle having a daughter.  I think the majority of her life she could only find intimacy through sex.  She passed that on to me but I was able to mature and grow past it for the most part.

My mother graduated 8th grade weighing 180 and she was extremely jealous of me when I developed into a teenager.  It has always been an issue.  But then my mother is jealous of everyone.

I think she was probably molested by my grandfather.  I found out this summer that he offered $1,000 cash to my step sister if she would spend the night with him.  She was a very young teenager when he did this.  He was an alcoholic during my childhood, sobering up after having bladder cancer in his 60′s.

I think he went off the rails when my uncle, my mother’s baby brother, died at age 3.  I think Mom was 5.

Grandpa made sexual references quite regularly, so much so that I bought him a subscription to Playboy when he turned 80.  Mom was his favorite.  My grandmother was practically disabled by the death of her baby on his 3rd birthday and had a stroke.  She became pregnant almost immediately with my aunt.  I’m sure Grandma was neurotic as hell with my mother, even though she was a wonderful grandmother.

So, as you can see, I do think about these things and try to understand.

But she let me down so big, Peter.  She’s not a stupid woman by any means, she is far smarter than I am and yet during my childhood her basest instincts were all that mattered.  Her new husband, her pornos, her dildos, her booze and pills.

I tried to explain to my daughter today what it was like to be a young girl living with a maniac, holding the phone, looking at the phone book, thinking there must be some unknown number inside it that I could call to reach someone who would come and take me away, protect me from her.  My childhood felt like it lasted 50 years.  As a pre-teen I wouldn’t ride my bike to any spot where I couldn’t see my house.  I thought if I got lost she woudn’t care enough to come and look for me.

In some ways, as an adult, she got worse.  She stopped bathing, she stopped taking care of herself, she stopped doing all the things she taught us were imperative.  As the daughter of a woman who does not take care of themelves cosmetically, who admits to having genital warts and allows herself to be in a position where men shave her vagina at a party, there is a piece of me as a female who is so mortified, so disgusted that this is what I come from that I can barely breathe when I think about it.  This from the woman who left my father to let him die alone, without his wife and children, so she could get some strange dick.

I guess I might be able to forgive that if she at least washed her hair (lol, sorry).  For God’s sake, she wore a swimsuit top to my niece’s 8th grade graduation.  This is an unforgivable fashion faux pas.

When my father died and she was all I had left she barely spoke of him, it was like he just disappeared.  There was no love in our house, only hatred.  She never told me she loved me throughout my childhood.  Never.  All throughout I watched other girls who had mothers that loved them, that cherished them.  Still do.  I’ve never been good with things that seem unfair.  A lot of those girls had fathers.

Yet I know people who had it so much worse and they are so much more forgiving.  She’s never apologized, she doesn’t think she did anything wrong.  Yet my daughter gagged when we entered her home due to the fact that she does not clean up after her dogs.  We had to step over dog turds and around piles of pee.

Long story short, I don’t know how to forgive her.  She is so crude and mean sometimes.  I bought my great nephew a pair of pink sandles when I visited last year cause that’s what he wanted.  He was 3 and has 2 sisters and liked pink.  She told me, “The only thing worse than a fag is a Mexican fag.”  She was saying this about her own great-grandson.

I found out this summer that she used to take my 3-year old step-sister in a corner and tell her how ugly she was.  My step-sister is a beautiful grown woman and still can’t imagine people think she’s attractive because my mother’s words ring in her ears.  It breaks my heart.

It’s more like a shatter, really.  She was able to alter the course of my life, to misshape my brain.  I can make adjustments but she caused permanent damage, invisible damage, that has left me feeling like an outsider, damaged goods, not good enough, my whole life.  It has hurt my children, my relationships, my siblings & other people I love in a multitude of ways.

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Yet I had a lovely conversation on the phone with her tonight and didn’t call her a cunt even once.  I did not, however, say “I love you” and I’m pretty sure I never will.  I feel nauseated by the idea, like it would be the ultimate betrayal to my little girl self.  I need to be true to myself and if that means never letting go of the anger then so be it.  I deserved so much better.

Love,

Pamajama

L to R: Grandma, Penny, Dad, Me & Mom