Mommy Dearest

So here I sit, after two totally draining days. I dont talk about this, with anyone, ever because they always ask me questions that I cant answer.

It starts with my great grandmother. I can remember being a really little kid, and she would tell me the weirdest stuff. She told me how a woman gets pregnant when I was 4, the whole 9 yards. I dont remember the details but I remember beings scared that I was pregnant because I'd danced with my mother's boyfriend.

I guess it doesnt really start there, exactly. My great grandmother used to drink a lot and she never had good eyesight. She went totally blind around age 40 and was dependant on her husband, whom she constantly accused of cheating on her. Once she shot at him. A blind woman, shooting a gun in the general direction of her husband at 3am. Luckily, she didnt hit anything and he escaped through the bathroom window. She had two loaded pistols til the day she died.

My grandmother has something wrong with her too. I mean, if you look past her self centeredness, she has something wrong with her inside, that just adds to the insanity. I remember we came up for a visit once, after having lived in Florida for a few years and my mother went and had dinner with a family friend. My grandmother went into screaming fits about it because she hadnt been invited. She ranted and raved about how they were stabbing her in the back and this and that. It was pretty intense. I really expected her to produce a butcher knife at any moment and start hacking away.

I could fill up a blog about their antics, this was just a way to get my point across, that there is something wrong with them. Normal people dont do those things. When I was younger we always used to joke about the Hazel curse. Hazel is my great grandmother's maiden name. My mom and I would laugh and say that we werent going to go crazy like they did but deep down I guess I knew something was wrong even then.

Mom has always been a strong figure to me. Iron willed, always ready to fight the good fight, and she never let other people bring her down. The person who called me yesterday was scaring the crap out of me. She was weepy, upset, nothing could really console her. She was talking herself in and out of things.

For the past 6 months I've really felt there was a downward spiral in her behavior. Her actions and thoughts were more erratic, she never had a good thing to say about herself. My mother has never been one to be a fan of people, but lately this has gotten extreme. She wont go out and talk to anybody except the neighbors and thats only because they live next door and are busy bodies. She doesnt even go out of the house anymore except for work. Not even to the grocery store because her work has all of that stuff and she just buys it there before going home. She wont talk on the phone to anybody hardly. Only me once a month and even then its never a good conversation. I never hang up feeling happy.

My mother finally admitted to me last night that she needs professional help. I tried to talk to my mom about moving here instead of Florida and she wont hear of it. For some reason Florida is like Shagri-La to her and I cant change her mind. Maybe its selfish of me to want her not to move to Florida. I just feel like I cant help her as much as if she were here.

My mom keeps saying she has more options down there. And, thats not really true. She thinks she has more options but really its more of the same old same old. I really am scared for her. Yesterday it was like she was breaking down on the phone. I told her I would come up there to see her but she refused. I told her I wanted to help her, and she said no that she had to do this on her own. I guess she has some notion that since I'm the kid I cant see her weak and she isnt backing down off that one. What a horrible time to get stubborn.

But what would I do, really? What would I say that would fix it. Nothing. But my mommy is hurting and I just want to fix her.

I was numb all day today. I really just stared at the TV. I dont even know why I'm blogging. To get it off my chest I guess. Maybe so Lili will see why I havent been giving our situation the proper attention. Who cares.