Woke this morning knowing that something was terribly wrong. Actually, I knew something was wrong while I was still in that half-sleep, half-dream stage in which you come perilously close to wetting the bed because your still sleeping mind reassures you that you are sitting on the toilet when in fact you are soooo not sitting on the toilet. So in this half-sensible state of mind, I became aware and accepting of the fact that I had some terrible joint-eating cancer. Still not completely awake, I made half-sensible plans to skip the birthday party I had promised to attend today and to have teary conversations with the girls about how after I died, Daddy was going to be in charge of their homework.
As I came fully awake, I realized that what had seemed at first to be an incapacitating cancer was, in actuality, merely the slightly sore muscles I had earned from my mountain hike with Maj yesterday.
I need to start working out.
After such a close brush with death, and still smarting from the whole, “we sold your house for about $150,000 less than what you owed on it,” thing, I was feeling vulnerable. More vulnerable than I feel most mornings. How else to explain being reduced to tears by another in a lifetime of casual rudenesses from the older daughter? How else to explain the rush of defensive white-hot anger when Mark asked me what Maj had said?
I generally have a sense of humor and a handle on my temper. I really do. But this morning, for just a moment, I hated them all. I spent that moment yelling and bitching and weeping about how my family sucked as the girls and Mark stared at me with wide, incredulous, “Mommy’s insane” eyes. My tears and tantrum freaked the hell out of both Maj and Kallan, and they ran about trying to apologize for whatever had caused their mother to finally and completely lose it.
Oh my god . . . the guilt.
Deep breath. Coffee. Apologies.
And we were off to the birthday party – two emotionally scarred little girls, one red-eyed fragile woman, and their driver (in times of stress Mark pretends not to know any of us).
Sigh.
I am just mortally wounded at the thought (and certainty) that all of the work I have put into making the girls strong and independent and smart will be undone by the few moments of their childhood in which my insanity is unleashed. I feel as though I cannot breathe, the pain is so tightly wound around my body. All of this life as their mother, and in the end, I offer my girls the worst of my own childhood: fear, uncertainty, confusion, and panic.
If you can avoid, in your own life, tossing the pieces of your life up into the air and having things come to an emotional head in such a way as to cause you to vomit up some of your leftover childhood crap on your children, my advice would be to do so.
And they say dreams don’t come true . . . this is soooo my styrofoam teeth dream come to fruition.
I remember once when I was about nine years old, getting into a huge scary fight with my brother, who was a year younger than I was. I tried to stay out of fights with him because he was like a wild animal when he got angry, and there was no calming him. I don’t remember what this particular fight was about, but I remember being scared and racing into my room to slam the door and keep him out. He chased after me, and at the last moment, stuck his hand into the doorway to keep me from closing the door. But I closed it anyway, and slammed his finger in the door.
He couldn’t pull his finger out, and I wouldn’t open the door. I just knew with a crystalline certainty that he was going to kill me. So we stood, my brother screaming and banging on the door, me braced against the other side, praying that the door would hold or that his finger would rip free.
Where were our parents? Who knows. Eventually they came home, I opened the door, and my brother’s now deformed finger was released. He didn’t kill me, and I didn’t apologize.
Nothing was resolved. Nothing was ever resolved. That has turned out, at various points in my life, to be troubling. And so, all these years later, I now find myself braced against the door again, scared of the threat screaming from the other side. Only this time, the threat from the other side is also me.
Isn’t that fun.
In other news, Mark has been keeping a close eye on my search-engine optimization (SEO), and he occasionally suggests that I try to stick to one topic in my blog so that the key words and phrases people are apt to type into a search engine such as Google (for example) will bring up my blog. He wants me to identify more posts as tied to “parenting,” or “children,” or “Portland,” figuring that those are the sorts of searches I want to have bring up my blog as a possible link.
Instead, Mark sternly tells me that someone somewhere typed in, “SHOCK COLLAR”+PORN and was directed to my site. Which I think is hilarious! Whoever that was didn’t stay long (just long enough to figure out that no one was fucking the dog, I’m guessing), but the lesson is apparently that I am not properly optimizing.
Which I already knew.
Love it! I can totally relate.
Thanks to both of you . . . it is sometimes easy to feel like I am the only one who has ever had such a bad-mom day. I appreciate the support!
Unfortunately, I often vomit on the kids. Totally relate.
Hi, Kris! I’ve been reading your blog for awhile – found you through No Points for Style. I am riveted by your posts, especially because of my mother’s childhood.
My mom was raised in Texas in abject poverty – six kids total, herself the oldest daughter (who had to care for everyone), with an abusive father and sick, bed-ridden mother. You know the drill: no food; torn clothes; physical, sexual, and emotional abuse; filth and despair.
My mom grew up vowing that she would find something better, and married my dad who is a pastor, author, and teacher. She gave me and my sisters a life that she never had, filled with pretty things and a lovely home. In stark contrast, her other remaining siblings simply repeated their own childhoods, and their lives have been ones of poverty, abuse, divorce, etc. etc. She was the only one who broke free.
The reason I’m commenting on this post specifically is because I think it’s okay for your girls to sometimes see the “crazy” that lurks beneath the surface as the result of your childhood. My mom would throw out hints but never give us the whole story, and it was very frustrating. One of my aunts would come and visit, and she had no problem talking about their childhood, so we would pump her for information which is really how I learned about my mom’s experiences.
Your girls will not lose all the wonderful traits you’ve instilled in them no matter what they see or hear from you, anymore than my sisters and I did. On the contrary, learning about what my mom went through made us appreciate our own lives and even more, appreciate how far she came and how hard she worked to get there. If you don’t tell them why you sometimes have those moments, they will imagine something even worse than the truth, so if you haven’t already it might help for you to tell them a little about your childhood and how it still affects you today.
My mom is 63, and I can still see vestiges of the little, lost, neglected girl that’s always inside her. Knowing about it helps me deal gently with her (sometimes annoying) behavior. It’s been fascinating to see that she has changed on the outside, changed her circumstances, but it is always with her on the inside.
Anyway, I probably should have made this an email (world’s longest blog comment!) but it was this post that really made me think about my mom and the effect that her childhood had on me and my sisters. Even though she tried to not tell us about it, it absolutely affected me and my sisters, especially me as the oldest daughter.
You are doing a great job of giving your girls all the things you never had, and someday when they know the full story they will be so grateful. Don’t be afraid to share with them – I think my mom has finally realized that keeping her childhood semi-secret gave it a certain power, but bringing it into the open did away with the power and enabled healing. A few years ago she and my dad co-authored a book and she shared some of her story in it, and it was as if a burden was lifted for her and for us.
Thanks for your honesty and your brilliant writing.
Lori
Well, that is just a lovely lovely comment.
I do share with my children, at an age-appropriate level, some of the details of my childhood.
Not everything.
And thank you.
1) I’m not going to lie. I remember very vividly the times my mom “let her crazy out” and they wounded me. But now that I am older I understand where she has been and how, even though my childhood was far from perfect, it was still better than hers. And she worked hard for it to be that way. Damn hard. I’m still a little wounded, but mostly filled with love and appreciation. Your girls will see you as human. They will see the cracks, the crazy. But those parts will just deepen their love and respect for you overall.
2) My brother was just like that. A little devil maniac when he got mad. Weird, because I just kind of commented about that on your latest post like an hour ago.
Haven -
1) I so hope that is true, babe. I am not a perfect mother, but I try so very hard to get it right. I know there are moments when my daughters are confused about what the fuck is up with me. I hate those moments. I try very very hard not to have those moments, because I know they are wounding moments. And that just breaks my heart. I am human and I try my best and I love them always . . . I hope that is what my daughters will remember.
2) My brothers are not on board with being discussed in these comments. Or that is impression they have given me with their stony silence where this blog is concerned. Sigh. So yes . . . the brother of whom I spoke in this post? Serious rage issues as a boy. But there was much to be rageful about. I’ll have to leave it at that.
Yeah.
Wow. I’m a dad, but I can relate. There are somedays when I have to stop myself mid sentance for fear I’m edge towards no mans land. My childhood is something that I desparately don’t want repeated. So much so that my childhood is a blank up until about year 7.
I refuse to let my kids live that way. And I fight that battle everyday because I know there are bits of me that want to come out and lash out.
Russell -
Yeah, I try not to have days like this one.
I try very hard.
Most days (almost all days) I am successful. Sigh.
Your childhood is a blank up until the age of 7?
I’m not sure if that would be better or worse . . . the not remembering.
Sigh.