If This Isn't Love?

Love isn't supposed to hurt but then again "...If this isn't love why does it hurt so bad?"

I cannot begin to tell you how long I have struggled with this concept of loving my mother and not feeling loved by her. But I can tell you where it all began. My mother is now “saved” but outside of that continues to backslide because as she puts it "I'm not perfect and “He” is still working on me".

Well mother, for how long? When does “He” stop working on you? When do you begin to do the work necessary?

You see my mom wasn't really in my life as kid. She gave birth to me at 18, spent a couple of years struggling to raise me and then my maternal grandmother stepped in and took custody. She had her own demons she was battling that more often than not played out as immaturity and neglect. There'd be the nights she would keep me up with her by putting wine cooler in my bottle, or the apartment we lived in that had no lights. The sleeping on a mattress in the living room, the shady characters she kept around, the fights between her and my father on the Eastern Parkway.

But it's not like life with my grandmother was any better; there was the constant fighting between her and my grandfather that more often than not would turn physical. The police visits. The name calling. The wanting my mother. The wanting my father. The wanting to be wanted and not in such a dysfunctional family.

Often times I was left to be more than just a big sister but a mother and a protector.....

I don't remember when my mother left, but I do remember those times she would show up out of nowhere. I'd be full of joy; hopping up in down in my short bus seat screaming "Mommy is here! I just saw Mommy!' and moments later she would show up at the door.

But it was always some drama; the fight with the churchgoers, the time she lied and took us to my sisters family in Harlem, the time she asked me to get diapers for her and I fell through my grandmothers coffee table. I remember my grandmother belittling her to the point my mother would just leave rather than face the wrath again. And I'd be sad to see her go because I never knew when she was coming back.

Then grandfather went to jail for bank robbery and she went for drug trafficking. Everything around me changed so fast; my grandmother became increasingly short tempered and physically abusive. Then we were removed.

We reunited when I was about 16 or so and I harbored a lot of anger at her for my years spent in and out of the "system". I felt like my life turned out the way it did because of her.

There were the constant arguments, the questions, the feelings of abandonment. Me wanting to know why she left and weren't we enough to stay? I became increasingly blunt often times accepting no excuses for the reasons she gave. "What excuse was great enough to leave your children behind" and to the devices of a woman you knew was unfit to parent because SHE abused you as a child?

Some years later if you were to sit my mother down and ask her why she sent us to live with my grandmother, she'd say something along the line of " Well you know, because you were her favorite and I thought she was going to do right by you guys". With a woman who possessed as tangled of her own story, how could you for one second believe she was fit to raise her grandchildren?

Abuse like that doesn't turn itself off and on over night. But I guess my mothers naivety led her to believe otherwise. As time went on and our relationship seemed to progress I became more disillusioned and distanced with the thought of "loving" my mother. She could be petty, childish and highly temperamental. Even then she didn't want to be reminded, let alone held "hostage" (as she would put it) to her past drug and alcohol abuse that tore us apart.

It wasn't a matter of holding her hostage but more or so holding her accountable for her decision to put drugs and alcohol before her children. It just always seemed we were an afterthought.

I would go on to graduate high school, go off to college, join the military, and come home with a child of my own still stuck in a tumultuous relationship with her that hadn't made any emotional progression.

That year after getting out the military was really hard on me emotionally, I was struggling to get back into civilian life and adapt to living in New York City with a kid all the while navigating college, being a single mother and parenting.

As apart of me residing with her since we lived in public housing I had to contribute to the rent and also pay childcare for my son while I attended college full time. Which reasonably I had no problem doing. My problem came in thinking my mother was "my mother" and would have MY best interest at heart. In reality, me living with her receiving the amount of money I was, was an opportunity for her to "hustle" me.

She'd steal from my snack bag when I wasn't home, and then laugh about it. Blow up if someone touched some lotion on her dresser and then want people out of her apartment. Take a bite of your food when you weren't looking but then be mad if you used something in the cabinet that was hers without asking. Expect you to pay her because "that's what you do when you live in someone else's house and pay no real bills" but it was "none of your business" if you went down to the housing office to ask how much rent they were requiring you to pay.

Mind you, I was no stranger to this behavior from her as it was the main reason during my first year of college we didn't speak. She had the habit of blowing up on the phone over the silliest things, hanging up and then calling me days later trying to ease her way back into my life with some half ass apology. She helped me when I had no food in my dorm room but then it always felt like we took two steps back and fell into what was to become our routine.

One time after arguing over giving my son a bath twice a day, we got into a physical altercation which led to CPS involvement (on her part out of anger and spite) she claimed I had PTSD, poor parenting skills, and that I was a victim of abuse that I had yet to heal from and was passing down unknowingly to my child.

We would go through this cycle of questioning if not outright undermining my parenting followed by some sort of altercation then a visit from CPS. One minute we would have a somewhat amicable relationship and then the next minute it went right in the trash.

And so, there I was last night; fighting sleep, anger, frustration, embarrassment and questioning my worth as a mother thanks to yet again some more impending family drama. My mother again, CPS involvement, the concern of parental neglect on my part and my family subjected to what I had been working so hard to undo. It ate at me all night, I tossed and turned, played scenarios over and over again trying to figure out what part I played in all of this.

It just seemed like every time we appeared to be in a good space, something tore it apart and then I'd become the bad guy all over again.

"If this isn't love, why does it hurt so bad"? Do I not know "love" or what it is to be loved? I highly doubt that as I have been married for the last 4 years and in a relationship with my husband since 2009. I know love because I am surrounded by it every waking moment of my life. I know love because they are my children, and my husband. I know love because it is what I put out in my house followed by hugs, kisses, spending quality time with my children, and surrounding them with a loving and stable relationship between their parents.

But what is it that keeps drawing me back into wanting a relationship, let alone wanting to be loved by a woman who goes out of her way to show me the feeling isn't mutual? Like what keeps me coming back? Why haven't I been able to see my mother for who she is rather than who she professes to be?

I guess because in some sense you don't want to see your mother as toxic, childish, spiteful, bitter or someone who keeps trying to find new ways to excuse her own shortcomings that blind her to who I am really am.

I am by in no means perfect, I have my areas that need work but she doesn't give me the credit for working on them neither. She continues to accept mediocrity from my other siblings as far as their lives and parenting skills. She at times enables them being stagnant or neglectful for her own gain but somehow I always find myself in the cross-hairs of "parental neglect" and shame.

How does someone who didn't raise her kids, emancipated one at 16, was a teen mother/runaway/alcoholic speak on "life and learning from our past" because she is now sober when it's clear some of her ways haven't left her?

Don't get me wrong; there have been times my mother has come through for me when I have needed it the most. But there have also been times when she has come through with stuff I ain't need to be going through.

The biggest question I keep asking myself, is why do I keep trying to insert myself somewhere where I clearly don't belong?

Because "If this isn't love...."?

Why does she stay on my mind?