Post-mother

I didn’t lose a mom, but I lost my mother. I didn’t lose a caring, protective, nurturing person whom I should have been able to go to for anything. Instead, I lost someone who put me in harm’s way over and over as a child. I lost someone who never put me first, although I’m the only child she planned to have. She had me on purpose.

Out of my mother’s children, I’m the middle child and the only girl. She wanted a girl, but I’m not the girl she wanted.

“I never wanted you kids,” she would tell me. She wanted a girly, dress-wearing, pink-and-purple-loving girl who did dance and wore bows in her hair. Instead she got a tomboy who hated “girl colors” and who played basketball better than the boys.

We had many conversations while I was a child, but they were one-sided. I was to sit down, shut up, and listen like a good girl. I was trained to be my mom’s best friend.

My mother would tell me about her job, her co-workers, her friends, my father, my grandparents, my brothers. She talked to me about everything. I always listened. I always obeyed whatever it was she asked of me. Because unlike my brothers, I wasn’t given the attention or affection or acknowledgement I deserved. And it took me a long time to feel like I deserved it. My mother showed me that I did not deserve any of it; how was I to believe I did?

As a young child, I fought very hard to get my mother’s attention. You see, we talked all the time. Except, did we? She talked while I listened. She wasn’t paying attention to me or asking about anything in my life. I wasn’t being acknowledged in any way. But I was expected to quietly listen to all of her qualms about whatever and whomever bothered her that day. And in return, sometimes, my mother would tell me, “You’re such a good girl. You listen to me. You get it. You’re my best friend.” And that was worth it.