I'm Still Here

I don't want to get too mushy on the subject of family and what it means to me and all that junk, but I would like to talk about my mother. Why? I believe she played a major role for how I turned out, although she probably wouldn't want me to say that. I can sum my mother up in four words; the mother from hell. Thats not neccessarily a bad thing all the time.

My mother was a single mom so we lived with my grandparents. My mother would go out to party and I would stay at home with my grandparents. One of my earliest memories is my grandparents buckling me in my car seat and us driving around at 4 in the morning looking for my mother because they were so worried. We found her with some guy on top of a car. I remember her putting on her makeup and getting dressed before she'd go out. Occassionally she would wait and read me a story and get me in bed and then she'd go off. My mother was beautiful. Dark complected, silky hair and super petite. I had the hottest mom in elementary school.

As I got older my mother seemed to resent me more and more. Many of her boyfriends broke up with her because she had a kid. She married man I couldn't stand and had another child. It seemed as if I was being pushed out of the picture more and more. My mother hated the way I turned out. I never played sports, I never got sweatty, I liked to stay inside and watch TV or play with my toys. I liked being clean and decorating things. I liked shopping and drinking coffee. I was a very odd kid, and that was too much for my mother to handle. I can't tell you how many times she tried to change me, and after she married, it got worse, I had two people trying to change me!

My mother plasterd my bedroom wall with sports wallpaper and got this ugly oak furnature for my room. It wasn't me. Even at 12 I wanted a cherry sleigh bed and a bedroom painted a rich color like tope or burgundy. I went along with it to make my mother happy. Looking back I feel I should have had a back bone. After my mother had her baby I felt completely invisable. I'm not saying she did this on purpose, but it happened just the same.

High school was hell for me. She conatantly tried to change the way I was. I really tried, it didn't work. I disappointed her and her husband. I found myself walking on eggshells and watching my hand gestures. Evidentally my hand gestures I used when I talked upset my stepfather. If he was upset so was my mother. And that was only the tip of the iceberg.

My mother had another baby, and I knew that was it for me. By my senior year I left and moved in with my grandparents. Despite how miserable I seemed to make her life, my mother seemed to miss me. She wanted me to stay with her. I felt horrible upsetting her, but there was nothing I could do. I tried to make it work, and it wasn't working. My stepfather was picking on me constantly and it added pressure to my mother.

I love my mother. I always will and I know she loves me. But we are better off a part. She has her perfect little family, and somehow I felt like I was always in the way of that. She has her dream, what she always wanted and I'm happy for her. She still has problems with who I am and how I act. But the truth is, if I were like anyone else, it wouldn't make a difference. She'd never want me to be different, despite what she says. Right now she has her husband paying for my college so I can get out on my own and she doesn't have to worry about me anymore. Despite everything, I really want her to see that I'm still here and I'm never going to change because I like myself and people(Well, some of them) like me. Me and my mother are in a good place right now but we have to keep working to accept each other for who we are.

Thats what is on my mind tonight. I don't know why I entered this in my blog, but I feel a little better after getting this off my chest. If anything, maybe thats what I'll use the whole Blogger thing.