I like watching "House". It's a good show, well-written, well-acted, and always with a creative script and storytelling. I've noticed through the course of the show how often the song "You Can't Always Get What You Want" is featured during the show's closing, especially in the first season. I know it's meaningful when it's played, and ever since my recent trip home I've been thinking about it. Especially the line, "If you try sometimes you find/You get what you need." Maybe because I haven't noticed it to be true.
I'm sure it's because I'm depressed quite often that I don't see it. Maybe if I were to sit and think about it, it's true, that I'm really lucky with the things that really matter. But sitting here--maybe even moping--tonight, I feel like there's always something missing that I truly want, that I don't think I'll ever get. What hurts the most is that I'll keep waiting for it, knowingly in vain. And I'll put myself in a position to get hurt over and over and over again.
My mother has never been very demonstrative with emotions or encouragement or the like. She's funny, she's genuine, and practical. But not warm and fuzzy really, and there were times in my life when a bit of sensitivity from her would have gone a long way. I have come to realize that's just the truth about her, and a survival strategy she had to develop as a young child with alcoholic parents (adoptive parents, to make it worse) and abandonment issues. She tells me stories that bring tears to my eyes. But she survived, maybe by distancing herself emotionally, maybe by surrounding herself with people who would depend on her, so they wouldn't leave . . . My father was that sort, troubled and unreliable. And so am I. Maybe that's why she has such a hard time relating to me, and why she eventually left my father. Trying to get something emotional to grow out of seeds sown in the wrong soil.
I think I can deal with that, the fact that my mother loves me and doesn't show it. What I can't deal with is that she doesn't love my son. It breaks my heart into so many pieces that the shards hurt, too. I always thought that she would get to know him and love him. That they would spend time together and he'd be proud of where he came from, and I'd be proud of my family and my hometown. But the last time I visited, the part that is still stinging from the slap across the face of my dreams, is how she treated him, how distant she was, and the delusions she came up with to feel the way she did. She said she saw him "pushing her buttons" and trying to get a rise out of her, why I do not know. I mean, why would he push her buttons when she's already being so abrasive? And he doesn't even know her. I didn't see it at all. I saw a boy being polite and trying to bond over common interests. He saw that she liked video games and wanted to talk about them. My mother likes reality "competition" shows, and so does my son. He tried to watch them with her. But she just became annoyed with everything he said and did. And she really and truly believes those things she said. Which I don't get. It hurts that she would believe that, that my son is just a brat. No one else says that about him. He gets along with other adults so well, who knows? Maybe she's threatened by him? Not sure. She said she knew she was pulling away when he was a baby, and she watched him, and he cried. She said she only dealt with it when we were babies because she had to, but now she can't.
She had started the conversation with me by saying, "You know I don't deal well with people." Yeah, I know. What I can't forgive is that she won't even try. Won't get help. Anyone else, I can understand. No one likes to get help. But it's the reason she's always given for leaving my father, that he wouldn't get help for his problems. And now the tables are turned, and she doesn't see it. Time is passing, and it will be too late. He probably wouldn't even cry at her funeral, since he doesn't know who she is. I constantly have to remind him that he has two grandmothers, since she's never acted like one. And it hurts that it's my family acting like this. And what would happen to him if something happened to my husband and I? Where would he go? There are no family members I trust, on either side of the family. That hurts, hurts so so so much I can't bear it.
I'm starting to think I shouldn't even go home. I get hurt every time I do. Maybe I didn't realize it at the time, but maybe that's why I left in the first place, to save myself. I miss my home, but I miss the way it used to be. It's not the same place anymore, not when I see everything and every relationship falling apart. I feel more lost than I have in a long time. No home to go to, and no home where I am.
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