| ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- i see it come as no surprise (warning: long, probably incoherent rant to follow) Yesterday as I was getting dressed (knee-length dark blue denim skirt, blood-red sleeveless shirt, black slip-on sandals) I noticed a bruise on my leg � the inner calf. It is four inches long and two inches wide. It is various shades of purple and green and yellow and is neatly trimmed in black. It has a gigantic knot beneath its surface and is tender to the touch. I have no idea how it got there. This is a common thing for me. I can�t tell you how often GB will point to a bruise or scratch on my arm or leg and ask me how I got it. I�ll look at where his finger is resting and a familiar sense of bewilderment will come over me. I have no idea I�ll tell him. No idea at all. On the rare occasion I do know its origin, it�s like a small victory for my memory. But usually the injury is like an insult. You hurt yourself and you don�t even remember how, the little voice in my head says mockingly, You just whip through life like a misguided hurricane and then have to sort through the rubble later. It is so true really�. I keep myself busy with my job and freelance work. My calendar is filled with dinner dates and shows and things I have to do. I keep going and going and going until I burn out. Then -once burnt - I drug myself with the usual salves � obsessive CD playing, drowning in books and trashy magazines and scrawling disjointed entries in my journal (both online and off). I avoid people � screening calls, twisting time to evade chance meetings and rescheduling appointment after appointment. And then I wonder how I got here � reclusive and anti-social. I am surprised when somebody calls me on it. It�s not that. I�m not hiding�. I am simply�saving myself. Every day is so busy and filled with responsibilities and obligations and when I do have the chance for a solitary moment I grab at it. Would you believe that I try � I really do? But then something happens that makes me want to curl back up into my turtle shell�. The other day in this diary I mentioned that I wanted to try and meet my biological grandmother. People keep telling me that I don't need to get bio mom�s permission to do so,, but it�s just not that easy. Bio grandma is 87 and nearly deaf and is often quite confused (according to Bio Mom). She still lives on her own but basically Bio Mom takes care of her � handling her finances, correspondence and so forth. So you see it would be very difficult to just circumvent Bio Mom to get to Bio Grandma�.besides, I didn�t want to do it that way, I wanted to at least try and talk to Bio Mom first. So, after a few days of phone tag, I finally got Bio Mom on the phone and after some casual chit-chat told her that GB and I were thinking of coming out to visit sometime this summer. She was good with that. Then I mentioned Bio Grandma. And told her how I felt about the situation. And she was quiet on the other end of the phone � nothing but a faint static traveling nearly the 1500 miles between us. And then she dropped the bomb. It�s not that I don�t want you to meet Bio Grandma my mother told me in that sweet Southern Belle drawl of hers. She doesn�t want to meet you. Oh. OK And then she proceeded to tell me about how the last time I came out there (about two years ago), she had tried to convince Bio Grandma to meet me but to no avail. Bio Grandma was adamant, she said. It was, she felt, too late in life to meet me. At first Bio Mom padded this bombshell with lots of stuff about how old Bio Grandma is and how she�s very unpredictable and stubborn and god knows what she�s thinking and once she�s made up her mind you can�t change it. Sometimes she�s very sweet and nice said my mother, and sometimes she�s just downright mean and strange. I took a deep breath and was handling this OK. After all, all my other grandparents are a bit loopy too�unpredictable and sometimes hurtful �it seems as if old age makes you lose any sense of tact�so, I was OK�felt like I could manage to not take it personally�. But then Bio Mom dropped the other bomb. There�s one other thing I should tell you she said. She�s really mad at you too. Ever since she sent you $100 for Christmas and you never sent a thank-you note, she�s decided she will never send you anything again.. OK, first of all. I sent a thank-you note (more on that later) Second: This supposed transgression occured after she had already decided not to meet me. Then Bio Mom proceeded to tell me that she had not received a thank you note for the $200 she sent me that same Christmas. After thinking about it for a few seconds (which Christmas was this? Not the last one but the one before?) I remembered the check for $100 that my grandmother had sent me. And I remembered the thank-you note I sent back. Granted I did not mail the thank-you note until February, maybe even March (wicked, wicked me) but I sent it. I remember very specifically what I wrote (thanked her for the money, apologized for the lateness of the note and told it we were putting it towards a not-so-exciting but oh-so-practical and much-needed washing machine). Now I do not specifically writing a thank-you note to Bio Mom but considering that I have sent her a thank-you note for every single other thing she has given me, I�m 99.99 percent sure that I did. I told Bio Mom that I had sent a note to my grandmother. But Bio Mom didn�t seem to hear me. I tried to tell her what it said, but again�she didn�t seem to hear me. Instead she proceeded to go on and on about how angry Bio Grandma was. Apparently she dwelled upon the subject for a good month or so. OK, so this happened a year-and-a-half ago. And Bio Mom never bothered to mention it to me? I mean it�s not her responsibility to make sure I send thank-you notes, but if Bio Grandma was truly that upset couldn�t she have at least checked with me? Why did she wait until yesterday to tell me? It was like rubbing salt in the wound. Not only does your grandmother not want to meet you but by the way she thinks you�re a rude and ungrateful little wretch When I was on the phone with her yesterday I did not get the sense that she believed me about sending the notes. Whenever I tried to tell her that I had mailed the cards, that I always mail thank-you cards she just kept repeating �she�s really upset� She also kept saying �well I never got a card from you either. It wasn�t until the check cleared that I knew you had received the money.� Sure it probably sounds lame to say something like �they must have gotten lost in the mail� but why couldn�t she give me the benefit of the doubt? Bio Mom did say that if I wanted she would try and talk to Bio Grandma again about us meeting. No, I said, I would prefer that you didn�t. Then, I finally had to get off the phone because I was so upset. I could barely choke out a goodbye before I put down the phone and walked very carefully to the bathroom (I was at work, not the best place for a breakdown), locked myself in a stall and proceeded to bawl (silently of course) for the next 10 minutes. Now most of you are probably thinking, �well, gee Shivers Girl, who cares what they think? Forget about them.� Well, whether you can understand or not, I care. I care because it really fucking hurts that my mother can�t give me the benefit of the doubt over $100 fucking dollars. It hurts that she didn�t bring this up with me before but instead waited to drop it on me at this particular time. It hurts that she didn�t just tell me that Bio Grandma didn�t want to meet me (though if it had been that alone I would be more understanding). It hurts that she managed to somehow link the two things together to make it seem like a punishment. It hurts that she never once said, �I believe you, these things happen and I tried to defend you because I know you are always polite and appreciative.� I would have given her the benefit of the doubt.
You know, she was the one who left me and then �waited� for 24 goddamned years until I was �ready to meet her.� When we finally met (all my doing), I asked for and then listened to her side of the story. I gave her the benefit of the doubt. And I understood and believed and forgave her. And she can�t give me the benefit of the doubt over $100 stupid dollars? I will mail the money back. And the money she (Bio Mom) sent me too. All the money � even the money that she received thank-you cards for. Let�s see�I think it comes to about $2000. $2000 that I�ve bent over backwards to thank her for as if I owe her some huge debt of gratitude. Hmmm, I�m 32-years-old�She left me when I was two. If she had raised me I probably would have been in her care until I was at least 18. That�s 16 additional years. $2000 divided by 16 years. That�s $125 a year that she contributed to my upbringing�and we�re not even talking about emotional or physical contributions. We�re talking about money. You know, not to be petty or anything but my adoptive mom has never once given me a guilt trip about the thousands of dollars she contributed annually from the time I was four until the time I was 18 � and beyond. (And yes I do thank her (the adoptive mother) and appreciate her.) You know, at one point, a few years back, she had offered to help me pay for grad school; yesterday before the conversation turned in this direction I told her I�d been accepted to a school. When she asked how much it cost, I told her. She balked at the cost and said �I want to help you but I can�t afford $30,000�. I hadn�t asked her to help me. I don�t expect her to help me. I don�t want her to help me. I talked to GB about all of this at length last night (I was much calmer by then) and he was pretty shocked at what had happened. He knows I send thank-you notes. He believes me. He trusts me when I say that I did. He can't believe Bio Mom would bring it up this way or not have more faith in me. After we talked for awhile he agreed that we shouldn�t accept any money from her in regards to my school or to a house (at one point she�d offered to help us with a down payment too). I�m going to write her a letter to express my feelings. I am not going to bend over backwards in an effort to get her to believe me. If she won�t give me the benefit of the doubt that�s her choice. If she wants to use it as some sort of weird excuse as to why her mother doesn�t want to meet me, fine. I�m just going to state my feelings on the matter �calmly and reasonably � and leave it at that. And then I�m just going to be grateful for my adoptive mother and my husband and my cats and the people who truly know me � or at least make the effort to do so. Whew. OK, I feel even better now, just getting that all out. The clickety-clack of my angry typing is a satisfying sound indeed. And on the bright side, I was recently googled for and +"julia roberts" +"denzel washington" +humped. That really makes me feel better� 4:53 pm - 05.15.02
sounds: Sonic Youth : "A Thousand Leaves" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- previously on ... - next time on ...
money can't buy happiness but it does buy small pieces of of serenity - 15.07.12 - 4:29 pm sh)t's about to get real, y'all - 31.05.12 - 9:46 am why the hell not? - 29.04.12 - 8:38 pm Hear that lonesome whistle blow... - 02.04.12 - 5:18 pm a faith in something I can't see - 30.03.12 - 3:33 pm |
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