Cherry pit

I get my hair from my dad, my freckles from God knows where, my analytical nature from nature,  my sarcasm from the Muppets. My over-burdening sense of loyalty, passive aggressiveness, smarts and lack-of-personal-boundaries come from my mother. Damn she was a piece of work....

Lately I have been feeling very negative, hostile, judgemental and defeated.  I guess it's what we do, when we feel down, we bring the world around us down in an attempt to feel like we have power over something in our lives.  So mentally this is going on and a CONSTANT redirection to something 'present' or 'peace'.  I managed to keep my patience through some very difficult times this past week, with a smile, managed to accept the fact that the money I JUST deposited the day before from working a new second job, was taken the very next day plus some, for car repairs. I am still trying to focus that positivity towards finding a place to live and in the process I am just on the verge of desperation because I just want to get back to MY life again in the worst way. I'm not using it as a reason to re-gain some sort of happiness, but because I want to put a lid on this constant reminder of failure to stand up for myself.

I've been doing some attempting to figure out why the hell I have this absurd sense of loyalty and why the hell I allow people to walk all over me and then I feel bad about it.  It's pretty disgusting.  Then I remembered who I was. 
     My mother. 
          Christ on a cracker. 
Not that I wasn't ever aware of our similarities, but to fine tune the mental processing I have is rather interesting.  In no way am I trying to say that the choices I make today or tomorrow or yesterday were in any way, shape or form 'cause' by her, I own my shit, but instead, trying to figure out the 'why' I think the way I do when in certain scenarios.
How's that for overthinking overthinking?

~The first thought you have about something is what you have been conditioned to think.  The very next thought you have is what you know is the truth. ~

So I began to think back to childhood and my role models.  My mother. She had a best friend I adored, and an aunt who was close to my mother.  There was a long term boyfriend that was ultimately a seriously dysfunctional relationship but I do remember trying to glean all the good I possibly could out if those people.  I knew they did 'bad' things and they weren't like other adults I interacted with, but I learned very early on how to ignore certain things.  How certain things weren't discussed in public. 

I had a young mother.  Her and my father knew each other briefly before getting married.  Like 6 months kind of time frame.  She had severe psoriatic arthritis and an addiction to Darvon by age 25.  History of drug abuse of the recreational kind using "uppers" and speed. She was a "functioning" drug addict.  She also had a son two years older than me with mental retardation, cerebral palsy, deafness and retinitis pigmentosa. (He would eventually be blind).  She left my father when I was about two and as far back as I can remember, there was the long term boyfriend, pseudo step-dad, until I was about 12 I think.

Because she was able to get disability, she was a stay at home mom when we were little.  The bf was a union plumber, but I swear to God, he was unemployed more than employed.  It seems weird to me looking back that in the 80's in the California Bay Area, there wasn't that much development going on to keep a plumber employed....?  Really? At any rate, it was a clean house, someone always there, three squares a day, she was an incredible baker, she had patience with us, I was allotted so much freedom with my time and range.
There was the weird guy who was always zoned out on the couch (later I found he was a heroin addict), long haired Lou, you know that guy.... super long hair, mustache, wore the cut off jeans with striped tube socks all summer, like the fun uncle that smelled funny..? Just me? ok...
A few other supporting characters were my aunt and her husband at the time who beat her, my mom's best friend who was basically a bar fly, my grandmother who, for some unknown reason to me, always showed a disgust for my brother and I.  All of these people fueled by some sort of alcohol or drug. Always.

But my mom, she's the main character this morning. 
She stumps me. 
Her whole family is mental except my one aunt. She grew up with 3 sisters and a mom jealous of them all. She was pretty, popular, smart as hell and even played a little basketball and softball in school. She was going to go to Stanford on a partial scholarship.  She wanted to be a lawyer.  She decided instead she'd rather have her babies first.  I witnessed her decline from June Cleaver to hot mess by the time I was 13. There were evictions, car repossessions, turned off utilities... always some stressful life situation that needed addressing. It was always left on the back burner until it became a fucking fire no one could put out.  She lived day to day.  Paycheck to paycheck.  The end of the month on disability is rough.  And at the same time, she was crazy in that she was addicted to thrift stores.  Jesus Christ she had to touch everything in that store, it was misery. She bought things, not because she needed them but because "it was on sale".  She stocked up on random shit because "you never know when someone might need this".  Enter hoarding mom. 
Years of having to leave everything behind because of irresponsible behavior leading to squirreling away whatever you can.  Food included.

There was a stint of her being a severe alcoholic.  Literal jugs of wine, that Carols Rossi shit? Yeah, I still remember the smell, makes me ill.  Mom crawling into bed with you at night and pissing the bed isn't the kind of memory every kid gets to have.  The boyfriend was a Michelob man, Doral cigarettes and all the pot in the world.  I was exposed to marijuana my whole life like it was no big deal and the god's honest truth?
Those were the only normal people in my life.

She quit.  She could do that.  If she wanted to do something, she did it.  She was stubborn as hell.  Just like a good lawyer but with out the dramatics and yelling.  Always seeming cool, calm and collected. She never got emotional.  We were NOT affectionate as a family.  I literally remember one hug in my life from her, when I was about 24 and the very last time I spoke to her, she said 'I love you' which really, really, really scarred me.

She didn't care to what expense it cost her, she just wanted to be liked.  She would do anything for anyone and even so on a level of annoyance.  I think she felt if she couldn't do anything about her own shitty situations she could at least try to make everyone else's easier.  She set NO boundaries for herself.  I was scolded for anything considered to be selfish.  Hell, I grew up helping to raise a mentally retarded brother, my whole life was just sacrificing what I wanted for the greater good.  I got my first summer job at age 14.  My checks went to help pay bills because at this time, my mom's best friend of over 20 years ran off with her then fiance.  Enter nervous breakdown mom.

I'm 16, work full time, I am on Independent Study because I can't deal with regular high school of which I will be graduating soon so I can go into "the real world", I break up with my first boyfriend of over two years and lose everything in an eviction I was unaware of. I had a backpack I stuffed with clothes I grabbed on my way of being ushered out, and my dog.

The next few years are where I eventually get married two months before I turn 19 to someone I knew for 9 months, lose out on thousands of dollars trying to help my mom establish a place to live and eventually move to St. Louis briefly.  Enter meth addict mom.

The thing with watching really smart people ruin their lives and you are doing all you can to try to make them see where they can do better, is eventually you have to detach from them emotionally or they ruin you too.  I full well understand the struggle with the whole truth to 'you can't help those who don't want to help themselves.' It's amazing the stupid things bright people will do. 

She would try to rent rooms out to make ends meet when I was moved out and these people would rip her off.  Literally one woman started beating her up.  She was such a doormat.  She NEVER stood up for herself.  Made excuses for everything.  If she did own a mistake, it was to play the victim.  Holy hell, the sap stories you can be witness to hearing from a mom on disability with a disabled son.... Interestingly, she never lied.  She was just a master bull shitter.

I was victim to males trying to say they could 'collect' with me and I was stolen from so I had to make a name for myself to NOT FUCK WITH ME.
I was woken up at 3 am to bear witness to the freaky thing that was the Bronco supposedly, very slowly, rolling down the driveway backwards. On the flat, gravel driveway.  That there was a man hiding in the bushes outside, she called the cops a couple times on this one...  Going through every box in the house at 2 am to try to find the title to the car so "I can get it smogged!" (??) Cleaning the carpets with the steam cleaner BLEACH ADDED in the middle of the night was always a fun one too...
She stopped having eye contact with people.  She started hoarding more, she moved away, I guess thinking she could try escaping again.  She didn't. 

I remember very vividly one afternoon when I was very young.  Like under 8. I was riding in the back of the bf's light blue Cougar he had.  Everything blue. interior, carpet dash... lol He lit up a cigarette and there is that certain smell that comes from the first smoke of a cigarette that is more burnt paper than tobacco and that is one of those smells that takes me back to happy feelings. Interestingly, on that particular afternoon I was just thinking about whatever kids think about when passing through a town and your too small to see out the window, and I very clearly had this knowing that I was going to lose my mom sooner than I should think.  Like I knew I was going to be younger and it just broke my heart.  I started crying and I wanted to sob but I remember keeping it in as hard as I could because I didn't want anyone to ask me what was wrong.  That's a solid memory.  It's one of my first.

So when I got the call Christmas morning, 2005, and I heard my grandmother's awful voice, saying "Melissa, it's Grandma." In exactly the same nasally, shitty way she said it every time, and I knew instantly she committed suicide.
Damn.
Christmas? Really?
Fuck.

"Unintentional overdose"
Oxycodone.

Being that I have been aware of becoming her age now, I have always been accepting of things that happened.  I have remained un-accepting of things that I don't understand, like her being beaten, raped? (details were kept private but I saw pictures of the aftermath of her face) to near death. No one deserves that.
 She did what she thought she had to do at the time.  I get that.  I realized not too long ago I was living for the day and not preparing my future and I was going to have the same headaches to face if I didn't get out of that mentality. Now at this point I am trying to piece together the parts of me that are passive aggressive and this insanely debilitating sense of loyalty to those that aren't' me. This clearly is a learned behavior and it's a damn shame it had to take me half my life to realize it but it was a matter of realizing value and worth.  Something she could never do.  Something I always tried to establish in a weird mimicry way because that's all I knew.

Now that I am in a position where I have no choice but to love and respect myself because I won't find that in anyone else for what it should be worth to me, I am aware of what my first thought is on something and what my second thought NEEDS to be.

Mentally I'm playing the blame game and I'm trying to make others seem smaller so my ego can be bigger.  It's the self conditioning to change for the better that is important though.  I spent the past 6 years playing the role of partner to someone who didn't deserve me nor gave me half as much in return.  Repeating the pattern my mother did with others, the thing that always made me so angry at her. 
It's true. 
What we hate about others, we really hate about ourselves. 
We just have to recognize where it is within ourselves first.

and cherry pit that mother fucker out of our lives.

GJB-E 1954-2005

I'm not ready to forgive and I'm ok with that

The topic of forgiveness has been heavy in my head for a few weeks now.  This means it's solid, not letting go.  This "action" needs resolution as it is literally making me feel increasingly hostile.  It's not the forgiveness that is making me feel hostile, it's the anger I feel.  I keep retaliating against myself on the subject.  Making reason after reason after reason after reason as to why he doesn't deserve to be forgiven.  Building up this incredible wall of garbage and filth and stink and rot just begging for it to topple over and dissolve.  Every week there is at least one thing that is brought to my attention with a memory of some fit he threw over nothing or some critique of me.  How so many red flags I just completely missed. So then my anger transfers to me.  And I bury myself in the same pile of hate and revenge and fury.  I stew and melt and conspire against myself.  Taking the blame. If only... Then if... 

Reminded that it's not my fault, because normal people don't go around telling their partners they are horrible people for not bending to their vision of potential.

I don't exactly know where in this cycle there is going to be a solution.  Obviously it will come between shared blame but at what thought?  It's almost like I am asking myself, like a lawyer cross examining, "On what grounds will my arguments be based on?" Which cliche am I supposed to be paying attention to here for my epiphany?

I'm not a fan of forgiveness.  I never really believed in it.  I called it a bullshit cop out.  I've had some pretty shitty things happen to me at the hands of other people I came across in my life and I have no real recollection of sitting down, thinking about, releasing or making an effort towards forgiving the person for whatever heinous behavior I was subjected to. It's just a matter of no contact.  That's it.  Done, over, walk away, be mad but feel lesson learned. I suppose I have forgiven my mother for certain things but all together? No.  I think some of the things I went through growing up is most definitely NOT a part of your every day average American teenager. 

So it's in the past and clearly there is nothing that can be done to ever change the past, and I should feel like I learned a lesson and the whole drinking poison waiting for it to affect the other person, not to forget I should do it for me.  It's a pointless argument and it's based on petty, immature thoughts.  It is what it is.
Right?
I think a huge part of this is him still being around.  I can't stand it.  I feel like I could jump out of my skin for all of the awful sensations he is. How even though there is no contact and no communication, he still manages to find ways to be a bully.  Granted he's gone again more now, (even heard his child complaining about having to be involved in all the various relationships he is having.), which gives me that sense of relaxation can be had but then it will come to the day he is likely expected back and I get stomach cramps, I have nausea.  And it's not because I am so angry or moody, it's because of the vibration he brings with him.  I constantly feel on defense because I absolutely refuse to be treated as I was ever again and obviously he is enemy number 1.I will never feel invalidated or less than or inadequate around him, ever again. No matter how, I have to present myself.  I feel like I have to be angry to protect myself.... I was thinking this morning...

After reading an article from a Buddhist perspective on letting go of resentment, it spoke of how it can be traced to not being able to ever communicate your feelings.  To have them acknowledged or to just deal with them.  I was ignored a lot when I was younger.  I had to live through some pretty sordid situations with drug abuse, prescription abuse, heroin users, meth addicts, crack heads, alcoholics, witness to physical abuse.... The only time I was able to get out how I was was feeling about my  frustrating situations, was to not.  To confront if I had to and walk away forever. No one told me I had a right to feel angry or sad or really to have any emotion at all.  I didn't have an opinion or a voice in any matter.  I was used, taken advantage of and neglected at times.  Self-harm sets in at a young age in these situations and while I had no knowledge of self-harm at the time, it was something I did. 
Instinctively.
I was horrified and confused but it meant no additional drama and I could be left alone with my "feelings" and "emotions" as they presented with deep, etched and at times bloody, fingernail scratches up the thighs.
So insert me into a marriage where I just want to be out of my current surroundings to a man who was brought up with a representation of a father and mother family, a dominating father at that, where also emotion and affection are not factors.  I was well into my 30's before fully understanding anything that had to do with my feelings or emotions, what I was doing with them, why etc...

So I think I am coming to realize the source of my anger might just be tied in with giving one person in my life, my complete trust, love and devotion and being abruptly rejected after years of easing into being able to be open with someone.
A big chunk of it anyway.

Forgiveness in Buddhism is a big thing.  You literally have to embrace it to achieve enlightenment. I can't say I forgive if I don't. I can't tell myself to "just fucking let it go", and have it be over with.  I feel like once I can be in an environment I can call home; once I am in a place I feel safe and out of judgement or sense of servitude or racked with anxiety, I can forgive.  When I don't have to look around and see a strangers stuff all over my house.  When the end of my weekend puts me in a medical position of having hives because of how stressed I am? It's just not going to happen while I am still being reminded of pain lived. 

In the meantime I keep flopping the word over in my mind.  Like some kind of blob, I just can't figure out what to do with.  I can't file this and categorize away.  I need to make a place for it.  Clear out some space, and try to empty at least this one piece of heavy baggage. Pretty sure it's a smelly old steamer trunk...

I'm getting a second job.  I don't have the obligation of cleaning and cooking and playing worship to a man so I have the time.  I need the money and with school and the lack of a social life, there really isn't a reason why not. Physically, I'm upset.  My elbows have severe pain and numbness in my fingers with arm usage. Fun.
I certainly don't feel the need to fake a relationship just to have a place to live.  I have a history of living on my own and taking care of myself.  The fact that he EVER thought that I was with him because I needed to be? Coming from the man who slips from one relationship to the next almost seamlessly. Jesus Christ.....
I'm still getting over trying not to second guess myself.  To not feel inadequate.  To try to feel attractive.  To feel like I might be good for someone and vice versa. To reassure myself I AM a decent person.  That I need to have patience with myself and I need to take care of myself for once. 

I really wish I was taught how to set boundaries.