Mad World: Mother's Day Edition

If you ever hear me talking about my mother its usually in jest or reference to the childhood she provided me with. It’s never really to say, “Gosh, my mom is the great.” In fact, I haven’t talked to my mom in over a year. I don’t regret it. And frankly, my life is better for not having her in it. For a lot of people that’s a hard fact to swallow. They protest my ill feelings towards her. “But she gave you your life.” Yeah, she gave me life. Neat. That doesn’t make her a saint. She made a stupid decision and I was the result of that. It doesn’t make the accident a tragedy, but it doesn’t even give her points in my book. That being said, not all of my memories of her are horrific.

The women who gave birth to me was named Therese, her friends called her Theresa or T and I look a lot like her. I share many characteristics with her. We’re both smart but miss guided. We both use humor to hide our faults. And when I was younger after all my siblings had gone off to school she would make me “Pop-it” eggs and toast. And I loved those moments when we’d sit in the cabin kitchen, her nursing a hangover or coming down from some drug… And then there was me, lost in the world I lived in inside my head using toast to pop the yoke of the over medium eggs she made me. I cling to this memory the most because it’s one that makes me smile. It was one of the only times in my life I felt like I wasn’t lost in a sea of everyone else.

I know that Therese always talked so highly of me. She told people I was smart. She marveled in my ability to create and write. She loved me the best she could. Unfortunately that wasn’t enough. Ultimately, she chose herself over the lives of her children and we suffered for it. There are many times when I find myself caught in the emotions and I crave the relationship I see my friends have with their mothers. I’ve shed more tears than I can count mourning the loss of that relationship that never was and never will be. And it’s probably the hardest thing for me to let go of because even though my brain can acknowledge the poison that she brings, I desperately reach for her love. And each time I am met with a sting of rejection. But it’s Mother’s Day… so, thanks for giving me life, Therese.

However, the real hero’s in my life on Mother’s Day are the people who stepped in when she walked out. The real stars are my grandmother, Jean; my aunt, Kathleen; my godmother, Peggy; my brother Dan and Ashley’s mother, Michelle. They are the ones who deserve a medal for raising me in her absence.

Black velvet with that slow southern style

I have always loved coming back to the place where my mother grew up. It gave me a sense of peace and connection.

Specifically I enjoy driving random roads and imagining that my mother once drove down these roads. I think about what life must have been like for her when she was a teenager and where she must have gone. I drive by specific places that have been land marked in stories and pointed out and I can see her face. I can hear her laugh, but then I also see her pain. I feel it.

I try to think how drastically things have changed in the ways that every time I visit Tucson, something has been built up, added or destroyed. Or perhaps the only change is that the shops now house things with a Spanish and Mexican flair.

I just know that when I’m here, I don’t feel so rejected or alone. I feel… home.