Replacement Fathers and Being My Own Mother
It feels like it's been a while. Probably hasn't because I update here every few weeks when something fucked up happens in my life, but to me it feels like I've been thinking about writing for a while. I guess I just wasn't feeling inspired.
A lot has happened. I got to play sous during an important client dinner at work last week, and this week I almost got fired. (It was absolutely my fault and he should have fired me then and there.) I guess I'm here to talk about grief again. Not the big one, the feeling I've been dealing with since J killed himself, but a slower one.
On this night, leaving work, I was so giddy and happy with not only my personal successes but the success of the entire team from Chef to dishwasher. I can't remember the last time I was so happy to be alive and living my life. I called the first two people I could think of that I wanted to share the moment with, they didn't pick up. I called my cousin Joey, who I call on major holidays and who's only been in my life a couple years. He didn't pick up either, but he has two young kids so I assumed he was just busy and left a message. He called me back as I got onto my train home and we spoke for a long time about my career and hockey and his kids and his wife. He so easily told me he was proud of me, that he was so excited for where my life is going. More importantly he told me he was proud of the person I'm becoming and the person I am.
And then I came home to my silent house. And I thought about how my family wasn't even considered in my list of people to call. About how my dad keeps trying to get me to go back to college because he can't stand his daughter working in a man's world. About how my mom humiliated me in the grocery store for being poor while stood in her three-thousand-dollar outfit. About how my sister (formerly my brother) thinks that I'm going to go back to being a straight girl after my "little butch lesbian experiment" is over. The flames of my family's betrayal have died down, but it's these moments that blow wind over the dwindling coals of their complete and utter abandonment of me. I look into my memories and try to remember a time where it wasn't like this, and all I can see are moments where I tried to connect and they cut me down.
I wish I was angry. I wish I was frustrated. I wish I felt anything other than a slow simmer of disappointment. Not at my family, but at myself. For thinking I could have changed things, for thinking I could have done anything different. Mostly, for believing that something inside of me was corrupted and that they were helping burn it out of me. There was nothing wrong with me.
There was nothing wrong with me. I was born as every other person was. I was not at fault for relying on my parents before I had the capability for language. I was not selfish for having needs that went beyond the material, and being unable to meet them for myself. I should have received comfort when things went wrong. I should have received care.
It's exhausting trying to meet my own needs. I feel so old and yet so young at the same time. I am 21 and I am so so exhausted. I wish praise didn't feel so patronizing. I wish I didn't have to ask every time I need reassurance or validations. I wish I could call my mom when I'm writhing in pain on the bathroom floor and I wish she would just fucking help me or comfort me instead of being cruel. I'm disappointed in myself for wanting something I can never have. I can never re-do my childhood and grow up secure. I want care and nurturing and I don't want to have to do it myself.