I want to hear you laugh like you really mean it.

I'm having mama issues again. Whether or not they are in my head I'm trying to figure out. I feel like I'm in the middle of that fucking divorce again. Like I have a judge looming up in front of me going, "Now, Teigra, where would you like to live? With your mother, or your father?" This brings back memories, not all bad, and not all good, of my childhood.

As a background, my mother wants me to come out to Missouri again to work in her failing company for four months. Most of it is explained in the e-mails, so I'm just going to post them. I'm crying again for the millionth time because of this, and I can't help that this is making me feel like shit, feel like slime.

-----------------
August 21st:

Teigra-

I know you are having a hard time with this decision. I know that right now all you want is to push ahead full throttle with your life there in California. I also know that if my dad called me when I had just moved here in 1997 and asked me to come back to California I would have had a hell of a time deciding what to do. The same would be true if it was vice versa with my mom.

Right now, my body is completely failing to keep up with me. I can’t even do housework these days, Dave handles most or all of it, along with the cooking, but when I do anything I’m either tired or dizzy and either way I just have to sit or lay down. My primary fear is this…if I do not have someone to go out on cleanings, and ultimately train replacement workers…my business will completely shut down in the next month. And it is very hard for me to walk away from what has become a decently profitable business. We are at 50% of my old net salary and that will be enough to make ends meet until I have had the baby and recovered IF I can stay in business that long.

Bethany and Pascha have agreed to give me one more week, which means their last day will be on September 8th. I have one new one, Melissa, who just began her training yesterday and the initial reports are good. But for the business to stay in business, I need two more additional bodies trained, and ready to go in two weeks. And considering I can’t do any of the training (exhaustion, etc) I’m in a very, VERY bad spot. I need someone I can trust to take over the training and the cleaning and keep me in business for the next few months.

That is my situation in a nutshell.

And just so we have it in writing, here is what I am offering you:

A plane ticket here ($150 or more)
Your license reinstated (hopefully not an enormous amount of money)
An hourly wage of $11.00/hr/job for cleaning, gas paid for, or $13.00/hr/job for training.
Your rent, utilities, and food paid
Your bill w/Longview paid ($300+)
Your choice of either a plane ride back or the Taurus fixed up to make the trip

All of that, so that I stay in business. Because without you, or someone like you, I truly don’t think the business will survive during my down time.

If it doesn’t work out, if we start clashing, what do we do? Give me two weeks’ notice and I will give you a plane ticket back to California. You will get to keep whatever benefits have accrued to that point (such as: I may have paid $100 on your student loan and reinstated your license). Does that make sense? Ask me if you have questions and I will try to answer.

Love, Mom

p.s. You may feel that you owe your dad for sending you a plane ticket, but keep in mind how much help you have been in the last two months to him in regards to daycare for Vanessa. A plane ticket couldn’t cost half as much as having to PAY for all of that childcare would have cost him. Also please keep in mind that even when I have made things look effortless, by simply buying something for you or making sure you had what you needed when you were growing up, it was by no means effortless. It also does not make it any ‘less’ because I did not go without to do so. I could have gone without debt (quite literally in the tens of thousands and years worth of payments ahead) and given you nothing. I also made a decision that I would work for companies, so that I could give you the life I felt you deserved. Your dad and I have both made decisions on how we wish to live and the level of emotional and financial contribution that we wish to dedicate to our children’s lives. I am not the least bit sorry that I made those decisions, you deserved to have a decent childhood (in the areas I had control over) and to have your basic needs fulfilled. I hope that someday, all of that will be very, very clear to you when you become a parent and wife.

-----------------------

August 23rd:

The last part of our discussion has stuck with me ever since we ended the phone call last night. You said that, after all the factors were weighed, it came down to money. If you could make money in California, then that is where you were going to stay. If that is the deciding factor, then your answer is quite clear. You can make money anywhere, California or here.

Dave said to me that I was taking this out of context, and maybe I am. Maybe I am also overly sensitive of how you feel you owe your father for one plane ticket, after I have supported you financially for nearly your entire life. Or that you continue to focus on one horrible day between us instead of doing what I thought we had both done two months ago—talked it over, agreed that we both have different memories of the event, realized we had both made awful mistakes, and moved on. For all I know, maybe in the back of your mind you blame me for what happened to you with ‘him’. I wouldn’t blame you for that, I hate myself for failing to see what was happening for so long.

Perhaps I fixated on you being here not so the business would survive, but because I wanted the comfort our closeness had always given me. Every day my body and soul are tired, I’m terrified of losing what I have spent the last few months building, and I desperately want my energy back and the baby to be born. In the hardest times of my life, I had you, and I would look at you and know that was enough, that together we would survive. And for these difficult next few months, with all of the exhaustion and joy, I thought of you and how it would feel to share it with you. But the closeness I thought we had, even friendship, you made clear last night was either all in my mind or clearly one-sided.

Again, I may be overly sensitive, but last night’s talk did not make me feel better, it made me feel like a failure.

Whatever happens with the business, it’s my problem, and Dave’s, not yours. It will succeed or fail, on my abilities (or present lack of them) alone. I should have never asked you for help or involved you in my problems. From all accounts, I thought you had no money and no job and that, while it would be difficult to come back here to Missouri, the benefits to that journey would be enough at the end of four months. If you had had a job that I knew was bringing in money, or an apartment you had just moved into, I would never have asked. But I think that at this point I should save you the indecision and discomfort of having to say no to me, and I know I need to save myself from any more heartbreak.

You seem to remember only the bad. God, how I wish you remembered even some of the good. I tried so hard, and I have loved you so very much. But it just wasn’t enough.

After we got off the phone and I burst into tears for the thousandth time in the last week Dave looked at me and said, “Maybe this wasn’t the best idea”. He’s trying desperately to be the rock right now, and I can see the toll it’s taking on him. Despite that, he has supported every decision I have made, and stepped in as much as possible to alleviate the pressure I feel. And, despite my longing to see you, to have your presence in my life when I am feeling so damn depressed and sick, I guess he is probably right. So, I’ll make this easy on you--I won’t be calling on Friday. I think we both know what your answer has been all along. If I’m wrong, I’m sure you will let me know.

-----------------

Le sigh.

I wrote a reply, and I'm thinking very hard about sending it. But honestly, I don't see why I shouldn't. Still, I am worried about the consequences.

Then again...

Be damned the consequences.

-----------------

August 23rd:

I'm doing now what I never do, what I swear not to do, for both our sakes. I'm replying to your e-mail immediately after reading it. I'm letting my emotions carry me.

Honestly, this is exactly what I was talking about. I can't say a damn thing without you taking it out of context. You act like the victim, like this was undeserving. Like you never realized that your actions would have consequences.

Yes, you have apologized to me over and over again. Yes, I have accepted your apologies. That does not mean that some of our history has never happened. That does not mean that you have not betrayed me, many times before now. Many, many times.

Mom, I remember you pulling me out of the car by my hair when I was still going to Gladdan. I remember you kicking me in the ribs for not cleaning my room fast enough. I remember you screaming at me countless amounts of times for things that I could not help. I remember you making me feel so small, I remember you making me feel like I was a piece of shit on the underside of your shoe. I remember crawling into a corner of my room, turning off the lights, pulling a blanket over my head and crying because you had made me feel so horrible.

Mom, I remember you taking me to the movies. I remember us going to Applebee's and having a blast. I remember cuddling up to you on the couch and kissing you and scratching your scalp with my hands. I remember when we went to get Dixie, I remember going garage saling with you. I remember being able to crawl into your bed whenever I had a nightmare, I remember you pulling your arms around me and cuddling into me. I remember you saying that you loved me. And I do love you, I really do.

I know I need to get over it. I know that I need to just accept that you are a human being just like me, and human beings make mistakes. But you are more then just another person to me, you are my mother. I love you, because you are my mother.

Yes, I remember the good times. God, I remember the good times, I remember them all the time and tell people about them. Why do you think Bev told you "Your daughter appreciates you more then she lets on"? I've been telling her about all the good times. I tell my father about the good times, I tell my sister about the good times.

I REMEMBER THE GOOD TIMES.

You seem to think that I am such a weak-minded individual that I can be influenced in my love for you by someone’s STORIES. I will never stop loving you. I will NEVER stop loving you.

You don't seem to realize how much this decision has been tearing me apart. You also don't seem to realize how much I just needed to get off the phone so I could think about it.

If this is the way you see me as a daughter, then I'm glad that you have made it apparent. I don't hate you, even if I may have said it a few times.

Now, so that we get the record straight;

When you kicked me out of the house, you had David take my keys away, you closed down my bank account, and as far as I knew I was not welcome back. In fact, as I was backing out of the driveway YOU WERE TRYING TO THROW SHIT AT ME! In a letter you even acknowledged, "Yes, I wanted to hurt you and the Taurus." Now, there's a line there that should never be spoken from a mother to a daughter: I wanted to hurt you.

I was just re-reading some of your letters and even though you asked for an apology, you did NOT state that you would let me come back if I did. As I saw it: Apologize for what? Apologize for disagreeing with you? Apologize for having emotions like every other human being?

You cut me off, you threw me out. YOU THREW ME OUT. If you were trying to make it apparent that I could come back, you didn't try hard enough. That is NOT a message that can be relayed through other people, it was a message that you should have given me yourself and you DID NOT. I did not know until I had a plane ticket and was about to leave that I could have apologized and came back. I DID NOT KNOW THAT WAS AN OPTION.

Maybe I just wasn't reading the signs properly, but this should have been something that was made more then apparent to me.

Now, I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you that these things happened. I'm not going to waste my time mourning that we didn't work things out while I was still there. I'm not going to waste my time trying to teach a pig how to sing.

What happened happened, and I'm much the better for it. I'm finally where I want to be, after four years of trying to get here.

The thing is, mom, I just never felt like you had any faith in me. And I feel like you have taken me for granted. I tried to do everything I could to make you happy. I thought I made you happy, but apparently I did not.

And I'm realizing now that I don't really need to make you happy to be happy. Yes, I always want you to be happy, but it's not something I need to influence directly. I love you mom, but I can't be there any more. I can't have that relationship with you that we used to have.

Yes, we had a great, wonderful, beautiful relationship. But I don't know if we have it any more.

Now, you can take this letter like you will. I wasn't in any way trying to be diplomatic or considerate. I was just writing down what I felt. If you hate this letter, if you think that I'm a greedy, selfish horrible child because of it, then so be it. This is what I think, and I can't change that.

-Teigra-