Mom

  Like I have said in the past, my mom and I never had a terrible relationship, we just weren't that close.  I remember from an early age, her way of showing affection was to buy us things.  She thought that took care of her showing us she loved us.  She wasn't the mom who played outside with us, spent one on one time with us, or even played a board game.  She carried on that tradition with my children.  She has never sat down and played a game with them, taken them to the park, or even watched my kids....EVER.  Now that I look back, that was a blessing in disguise, which you will understand more later.  I also remember her always having to buy something wherever we went.  She wanted to spend the weekends out shopping.  I remember also her lying about her spending habits and hiding credit card bills from my dad.  There were even times she asked us to lie for her.  Which being a child, I didn't understand how manipulated and used we were, by our own mother.
  When I was going through all the issues I was having as a teenager, she wasn't by my side for any of it.  She didn't take the time to gain knowledge on the issues and offer a shoulder to cry on.  I remember she wrote a letter to be read at the sentencing of my offender.  She talked about how she did this for me, and she did that for me.  It wasn't my daughter suffered this or has these problems.  Its always been about her needs and wants.  One great thing that came out of having the relationship and mom I did, was that I knew exactly what not to do and how not to be.  However I struggle in how to be the wife and mother I wanted to be.  I also think I'm hard on myself and set my standards high in those aspects because of it.
  She was very understanding when I got pregnant, that helped.  Probably because she had been in the situation herself, at a younger age then I was.  I watched her always put on an act in front of people and try to be someone she wasn't.  Most of the time it ended up being embarrassing.  She didn't help me after I had any of my babies, not that I would have asked.  But it would have been nice to have her offer.  She has always been a bit off, but she definitely started the downhill spiral when we were still living in Wyoming and she would call and say she was staying somewhere overnight because of the fighting.  My dad drank a lot growing up, so I didn't blame her most of the times she wanted to leave.  She started having health problems also around that time and started taking pain medication.  She would soon be overusing it.  She started barely ever going into work and getting fired from multiple jobs due to lack of attendance.  At this time my brother also started changing.  He was becoming socially withdrawn and not hanging out with friends.  He started slacking on school work and would eventually drop out.  I just attributed it to a less then functioning home life.  He was always constantly asking us sisters, if he could come stay with us.
  My mom, when she started overusing pain meds started acting stranger then usual.  She wouldn't remember having conversations and things.  She started becoming more and more embarrassing because she would try so hard to be someone she wasn't when we were in social settings.  I remember just dreading the kids birthday parties because I didn't know what she was going to say or do to embarrass me.  I remember one time after my younger sister had a miscarriage, I was having a birthday party for one of the kids.  My mom asked my sister about the miscarriage in front of the entire room full of party goers.  And then proceeded to try and be funny and says that she can take care of the miscarriage for my sister, because she has a shop vac!!  I was disgusted, mortified and beyond embarrassed.  How can in anyway, a miscarriage be used as a joke??  Not only that, there were people at the party who had themselves recently suffered multiple miscarriages.  How could you say that to your daughter??


A song that fits my life!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IW0WStxMmk&list=PL93E8F36D8C152F3A