kimberry33's Diaryland Diary

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discomfort and grief.

when i was 14, my mom started dating my teacher. admittedly, i only had him for one class- science- and it was the end of the school year, but it was still embarassing.

one day, they took my best friend and me out to a ponderosa buffet (remember them?) for an early dinner. i sat ashamed as he licked whipped cream off of her toes while we were sitting there in the booth.

one day, he picked me up per my mother's request and took me to eat dinner at a mexican restaurant. he told the waiter i was his teenage bride. and i was mortified.

they waited 4 years before they got married and he made her sign a pre-nup. good thing, because she spent everything she could toward the end in what she said it was "retail therapy, kim. hit him where it hurts."

that was her 5th husband. she left him in 2006 and disappeared for 6 months. i went to pick her up for our mother's day plans and she never showed. i waited three hours to take her to lunch and wound up leaving her card on the kitchen counter. i live 70 miles away. the least she could have done was called. my next contact with her was when she called me to ask if i could pay her car note. i did. and i told her "from now on, we're even. i owe you nothing."

then she disappeared for over a year, then called on thanksgiving 2007 while my boyfriend (now my fiance) were at a movie on our way home from Georgia, where we'd gone to visit my paternal grandmother for the holiday. we were watching "No Country For Old Men". we got out of the theatre, i turned my phone on, and was confused by the missed call and voicemail. i waited until the next day or so when he was at work to call her back. that was before we moved in together, but i still didn't want him to see me so upset.

it was an odd conversation. awkward on my part because i was so hurt. where was she for that year? didn't she give a shit what happened to me? what if i'd gotten hurt or killed? how could she have found out? no one knew where she was! it's confusing and no one really has a guide book on what to do when your mom disappears. i didn't file a missing persons' report because i guessed she was probably fine. i didn't change my number to my area code because i wanted her to be able to call, or at least to remove the excuse that it was long distance.

i was sick much of the day. i get IBS terribly in times of stress. much later, i got some medication from my doctor for times like that. it helps, minimally.

we agreed to meet for lunch, but i couldn't do it alone. i got my friend keri to come with me and lied to my mom about keri's car breaking down. started with a migraine. i went to the bathroom 8 times in the 2 hours we were there. it was just too hard. when we left, i had to stop and buy some tylenol at a gas station, and i took keri to buy some yarn at a specialty store in the area. and i think we went to joann's too. we're into craftery, so it works. i don't think i could have gotten through that day without her.

my mom remarked in later conversations that she could tell how hard it was for me to be with them. (my little sister was with her). i hadn't seen either of them since march 5th, 2006, and this was a few days after christmas 2007. almost 2 years to not see people that i lived with for most of my life. for 2 years i didn't see people i was used to seeing daily, weekly, monthly as i got older.

the way it works in my family is that no one really gives a shit if you're successful in the conventional sense. i have a master's degree. i work in a profession that makes a difference. i go to work in a suit during business hours five days a week. i have health insurance and i'm salaried. i just bought a brand new car in october. my fiance just gave me a gigantic dazzling diamond ring and we're planning a wedding with a catered reception. most of that wouldn't matter.

ever since i could remember, it's always been about weddings and babies. every boyfriend has been "the one" with my mom saying "what am i going to do now?" after every break-up. that's right. what is she going to do now. with the family oohing and aahing about everybody's success at breeding. even the cousin who cleaned out my elderly diabled grandmother's bank accounts, disabled her car, and cut the phone lines to her bedroom so she couldn't call anyone. when they had babies it was "oh, they're so wonderful" because they bred.

i had a very serious relationship in college. when we broke up, i drank heavily in my dorm room and even had a conversation with my residents (i was a staff member) about whether or not i should withdraw from the university. all i did was drink and cry and go to class. i wore my bathrobe everywhere. i couldn't tell my mother. i sat and cried and sat and cried, but i couldn't tell her because she would only make it worse. i knew i'd get the "what about me?" speech. eventually i sent her an email.

in december 2005, my older brother met a girl. in january, they moved in together. in february, he proposed. and on march 5th, they got married. the week before the wedding, my advice was to perhaps think about it a while, get to know one another, and then get married. my mother blew up at me, swore at me, told me i'd never be successful in my profession, and explained my poor luck in the job market (I had graduated with my masters in december; this was february) with the fact that i'm such a terrible person. then she accused me of wanting my brother to get a divorce. i stayed calm through her accusations, told her i loved her, and left.

my suspicion was as follows- he is a registered sex offender because at the age of 22 he slept consentually with an underage (16) girl. that's a book in itself, but he was too old to be screwing her, so he went to jail for it. stupid choice, but my brother simply isn't a rapist. her parents did perss charges. and his fiance had a young child. and sex offenders cannot reside in a home with children unless they are married to the child's parent. hense the wedding.

so my mother took all of my stepdad's credit cards and paid for his wedding. i drove 70 miles to take a girl i'd met twice to go shopping for her wedding dress. my mother drove up and paid for it. they had FIVE attendants each. i'm sorry, if you plan a wedding in one week, you go to the courthouse. you don't reserve a chapel and have five attendants. but whatever.

i was a bridesmaid. my mom bought a bunch of dresses on clearance, all in the wrong sizes. then she paid at least $50 to get mine altered. and bitched because people hadn't come to her house in the middle of the week to pick theirs up. you know, people who work and have kids and who might not be able to operate on her timetable. that was part of the exchange before i was accused of wanting my brother to get a divorce.

by the way, i'd been hired at my current job already, but i hadn't said anything. this was my future sister-in-law's day of dress shopping. no way was i going to be rude and steal some of that spotlight by announcing i'd gotten a job. i didn't say anything at all, even when she made those comments about me being such a terrible person that no one would hire me in my field. i figured it could wait for another day. no big deal.

i'm 29 years old. i have no children and i've never been married. i've been engaged about a month and we've been planning the wedding for a couple months. i have a retirement fund, but i have failed my family entirely in the ways that matter to them. i am well-respected in my company and i have recently had two letters of professional recommendation written for me for my licensure in my field. the letters attest to the quality of my work, my ethics, and my personal moral character.

i think a lot of what i struggle with at this point is trying to be a normal person at the same time that i recover from an abnormal past. here i am, planning the one thing that would make my family of origin happy, and they can't even be a part of it. i changed my number, they don't know where i live, and i don't want them there because i get ill when they're around.

in my field, we refer to them as "toxic" relationships. i have separated from them and i've gotten used to a healthier environment. going back to them literally makes me ill. my body protests the toxic dump of stress and pressure and dysfunction. i work on my wedding planning without a mother, and i feel grief at the same time i feel relief.

on one hand, i don't have a mom to help me and answer my questions and comfort my nerves. but then again, i've never had a mom who did that, so i'm not missing much. if the mom that i have could do those things, then she would have, right? but she can't because she's too wrapped up in herself. i never had a graduation of my own. it was always "my daughter's graduation" never "my gradution". I don't want a "my daughter's wedding". I want to have "my wedding". Our wedding. Mine and His. And I grieve for the loss of her, the mom I never had; and I grieve for the loss of who my mom could have been if she'd only looked away from herself.

9:38 p.m. - 08 March 2009

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