Payback is a Grandchild

12/6/10

I’ve learned so much about my mom since becoming a mother. Like, despite my certain belief that she was crazy, she was actually pretty damn patient. But I’ve learned even more about what a pain in the ass little bitch I was to her. Every time Madeline does something infuriating and I hear myself nag or lecture her, I think to myself “this speech sounds very familiar”. (I find my own nagging just as annoying as I did my mother’s and the voices in my head often tell me to shut up.) The similarities are so striking that I can’t help thinking my mom is up there pulling some strings making it all happen; An angelic little puppeteer just watching and chuckling her ass off.

Because I’m especially “lucky” to be raising a child EXACTLY like me, I have an even greater understanding of how fortunate I am to still be alive and unscathed. If she were still here now, I would thank my mother for not shaving my head or ripping my hair out when I was little and I turned grooming into a war zone.  I would thank her for not killing me after I didn't call or come home on time and left her worrying that I was dead.  And I would acknowledge a few of the millions and millions of things she did for me, daily,  that I know I know went unnoticed. I would apologize for being such a scatterbrained child who constantly lost things an couldn't find things things that were right in front of my face  and had a room so messy we had to leave the door shut. The other I actually I asked Madelind to shut her bedroom door becuase "your brother could crawl in there and die in that disaster", and I wasn't even being over dramatic.

Yes, my little clone is already pretty challenging at times. She is as sweet as she can be to the rest of the world. Her teachers have always used words like “cooperative, polite, kind and considerate.” (I’ve begged her to bring that child home from school some day because I would love to meet her.) So clearly, she saves all of her strong willed, stubborn seven year old frustrations for her mom. Rightfully so, I suppose. I mean, it only makes sense she takes it all out on the one who’s world revolves around her; the one who spends 90% of her time trying to make her life as wonderful as possible. I guess it’s only fair that if something is amiss in her world, it is all my fault.

But I can take it. It helps to know that, since she is me, she too, will one day be really awesome and wise enough to be grateful for what I’ve done for her and sorry for what she put me through. And she will also have a daughter and continue the “payback is an ungrateful little bitch” cycle.

I want her to know that I too was so selfish and self-centered, that I could not understand why my parents couldn’t just BACK OFF and let me live my life MY WAY. It never occurred to me that it hurt them to watch me make such bad and destructive decisions because they are the very people who’s world as they know it would end if something terrible had ever happened to me. I too, never thought about the fact that when I stay out all night and don’t bother calling, my mother was praying that I was not dead, even more than she was plotting my death IF and when I finally did stroll in the door and inevitably and infuriatingly asked “what’s the big deal?”

I want her to know that I know, just as my mother did, that when she says “I HATE YOU!” and MEANS IT, she doesn’t mean it. And despite her attempt at choosing the right words to cut me as deeply as possible, I will heal, and love her still. I will wish for her to understand that unconditional love is something only her parents can give her, and is NOT the love she has for her future teenage boyfriend who is a inevitbaly a dick and cheats on her (but she loves him and he loves her and that’s all that matters). Spare me.

I am eternally grateful to my mother, not only for loving me unconditionally, but for teaching me to love this way. I’m even grateful to her for wishing a child “just like me” on me. It makes me feel like I am repenting for all of my ungrateful -little-bitch sins against her. I deserve it, and I will do so willingly and whole-heartedly. And I pray that she will rest in peace, knowing that every day of motherhood gives me a greater understanding of how magnificent she was.