The Journal

I've been keeping a private journal since my mother died on March 15, 2007. It's a book that's older than me. My mom kept it in a dresser in the back of her closet. As a kid I loved to go into my moms closet and put on her suede high heel boots and her sparkly shirts, and I always dug that journal out and flipped through the pages...even though they were all blank. Its a small book that came from china and has a silk cover with leather corners and binding. the pages are very thin and delicate and have different color oriental looking designs on every page. I don't know why i was so fascinated with the thing but i really wanted it. When my mom caught me in her closet (every time) she put the book back and told me she will give it to me when i go to college.

I'm sure it was her dream to some day send me off to some University where I would live in a dorm, and she would send me care packages and hand written letters to remind me she loves me and she can't wait for me to come home. Home, my nice big childhood house with my mom and dad, our family pets, board games and movie nights. Where my parents would throw a big BBQ for the whole nieghborhood and our family and friends to welcome me home from college and to welcome my brothers new wife into our family. Home where there is an endless abundance of love and support. Where no one is afraid to be themselves. I'm sure this was the plan at the time. Isnt that what we all want for our kids?

She did everything she could to achieve this dream for her family. But I've learned it is nearly impossable to achieve such a dream when all odds, all people, all forces are working against you. She did the best she could, and when I was 14, she couldn't take it anymore and she left. I can't imagine how bad it has to be to pick up and leave your teenage kids with thier abusive, irresponsable alcoholic father. Do I really need to get into how bad of a situation that was?

A couple years after living with my brother and my father, I had taken the role of mom and did get to see exactly how bad it truely was. I myself couldn't take it anymore and moved in with my mom. This wasn't the great relief I had expected, infact it was almost worse.
At the time my mother was in a dangerous downward spiral that I guess I had failed to see before I moved in. She basically had gone nuts. She couldn't bring herself to get job. She had lost all her friends. She had lost her family. Her life was laying in bed abusing pain killers, and the occasional suicide attempt that I had to save her from.

When I was 17 my mom finally started doing better. She had gotten off a couple Rx drugs. She went and got a job for the first time in years. She made friends. She found hobbies. We finally started to become close, like we were years before. I was finally...starting...to get my mom back. But still pushed her away...after all I had seen, I couldnt fully bring myself to trust her. This wasn't your average "weary" feeling. This was like my heart had been ripped out and stomped on and shoved back into my chest, and I was trying to love again. My own mom.

At 18 I got married. It brought me a little closer to my mom. She had been "sane" for a while by then. When I moved out, my mom was wonderful and chatty and friendly to my dad and my uncles who helped me. It was a happy day, my first apartment, and I would be married the following weekend. When the truck was all loaded up I stood on the street corner with my mom. We were smiling. This was a huge milestone fo us both. Then she burst out crying. My dad was driving the truck and getting impatient, but I stood there on the street corner hugging my poor crying mummy. She was so happy and so sad at the same time. I felt that was a huge moment for us, and I cringe when I think of how my mom must have sat in her livingroom and cried and cried after I left.
The next day, all I wanted was my mom! I made her get up at the crack of dawn to bring me coffee and see my new house. One of my best memories of my mom is watching her walk down the hallway to my condo for the first time, carrying two cats carriers with cats in them, and two large Dunkin Donuts coffees. She looked exsausted. I was so happy to see her I nearly cried. I never wanted her to leave me! My own behavior shocked me. I couldn't believe how close I had gotten to her.
The woman I had picked up off the floor and layed in bed so many times, the woman who my poor husband had to tie a shirt around her arms to keep her from bleeding to death out of her slashed wrists, she was finally happy and healthy again. I finally had my mom back.

Finally.

The wedding was a great bonding experience for us, although I was still standoffish from being so hurt, it was getting better. Little by little. I didnt feel like we had the ideal, or even the typical mother-daughter relashionship, but I knew I had a mom. And I enjoyed her company...most of the time.

I got pregnant with my first son at age 20. I can't remember why i wasn't talking to my mom at the time, but I wasn't. I was fed up with something or other and hadn't spoken with her in quite some time. I couldn't wait to tell her the news, so I called her at work. She knew I wasn't exactly happy with her at the time so she thought I had some emergency and answered the phone sounding really worried. I said "Mom? I'm PREGNANT!". She was standing at work with customers around her, and she starts screaming and yelling "MY BABY'S GONNA HAVE A BABY!!". Who knows what we were "fighting" about. No one cared anymore. I'm sure she didn't remember what it was either.

When I had my son, everything changed. I saw my mom completely differently. We got so close. She absolutely lived for her grandson! And Jonah adored her. She made special songs for him. She wanted to bring him everywhere and show him off to everyone. Then was Jonah was 6 months old, I got pregnant with my second son. We continued to get closer and closer through my pregnancy. By the time Joshua was born, my mom was my best friend in the world.

This is what I've always wanted. What I've been waiting for.

Sometime between my wedding and Jonah's birth my mother slipped that journal into my bookcase. I pretty much ignored it not knowing what to do with it, and feeling like I cant possably write in it, the thing is an antique!

My mom died on the morning of March 15. She was only 43. No one saw it coming. I had just been with her 6 days before. We went to see a tarot card reader and had the best time. I remember feeling so close to her. I poured my guts out to her that night. She appoligized for everything she had "done" to me, my brother and my father. We had planned to start spending friday nights together, since we had so much fun and it was good therapy for the both of us. I made an appointment the next day for the following friday to see the tarot reader again. I even set a reminder alarm on my phone a couple hours before the appoinment. I was so excited.

When that alarm went off, I was sitting on my uncles couch planning my moms funeral.

A couple days later I remembered the journal she gave me. I had definitly found a purpose for it. I started out by only writing about my mom, she was all I could think about. Slowly my enteries included less and less about her. Now I write mostly about my kids and my husband, my plans for the future, my new found closeness to some and new found hatred for others.

It's only been three months but when I go back in my journal and read from the begining, it seems like 10 years.
My mom has told me my entire life I am going to write a book. She has never dropped it. I never wanted to write a book so it was pretty annoying being pushed to write all the time. I decided a couple days ago maybe it's time. I've only written private jounals....I'm a private person. But maybe it's time to start sharing what I write. So I opened this blog. It's public. I'm not going to hold my feelings back. I'm going to let people see what I'm feeling. Maybe between writing here publicly and my private journal, I'll some day put together a book. It's just one small dream my mother had for me that I can make come true.