Not Even Just a Little

Dear Mom,

I'm certain it's no surprise to you, since we've barely shared 100 words in the last 10 years, but I don't like you. I don't love you, not even just a little. You don't know how much I've wanted to love you. How much I needed to love you when I was younger. How much I craved your approval. I wish it could have been so.

I never felt connected to our family, not even just a little. I remember feeling alone, deeply alone, when I was even too young to vocalize it. I remember distancing myself from all of you, even then. In a family with proud Yankee heritage--your maternal line was descended from someone who sailed on the Mayflower!--I was proud of being born in North Carolina, in Cape Fear Valley Hospital, when my father was stationed at Fort Bragg. I fantasized about being adopted. I actually convinced myself that I had been adopted and refused to believe otherwise, even when you showed me pictures of yourself, pregnant with me. If you could have moved north and left me behind, how would I have been different? Would I have been happier?

As I matured, I knew you were never happy with me. When I was a child, you told me how thrilled you were to have a little girl. You said you imagined that could braid her hair and give her hugs and dress her in frills. But I, your real baby, never wanted to be held. I pushed away from your hugs. I disliked frills. Deep inside, you could not overcome your sadness at my apparent rejection. Still, you never sought to find out why. Why was I so detached? Why did I find solace in books and playing with my model horses, who lived wonderful (if imaginary) family lives? Why did I want to be a Vulcan, devoid of human emotions? Those answers will never come. You never sought to find out.

When I was three, my brother came. I felt no connection to him, either. You tell me that I put the book you gave me about "little brother coming home" into the oven when you weren't looking. You told me that I told you that you could take him back to where you got him. I would have been just as happy if you'd given me away. The rest of my life has been a challenge to keep up with him in terms of family affection. You enjoyed similar sports with him when he was growing up. You paid for him to go to a private high school for a year. when I would have given my eyeteeth to go to the vocational-agriculture high school across town. You let him stay home, rent-free, through college. Heck, you gave him the RESOURCES to go to college. I paid to go to nursing school on my own. just because I wanted you to approve of me. I knew that if I were a nurse like you, that I could make you happy and maybe you would love me. You didn't. When I failed to get my license, I didn't care. Not even just a little.

When I was 17, you kicked me out of the house. I had become depressed because I couldn't stand the fighting any longer. I ended up in the hospital--you know why. You came there, with my suitcase, and told me I was going to live with my father. After just a short time, I ended up living with my grandparents. I spent a year supporting myself and met Rick. When he started abusing me after we were married, you weren't there. You didn't want to hear me when I said I needed you. You hadn't approved of him when I married him. You didn't come to the wedding. I wanted to tell you that you were right, but you wouldn't bend. not even just a little. I showed up one night, unannounced, because he had been screaming at me and thrown a beer bottle at me and I fled in fear for my life. Did you realize that he owned a gun, Mom? Did you know that I could have ended up dead if I had stayed long enough for him to retrieve it? Instead of listening, you told me to go back to him. To stand on my own two feet. That you had a life and that I was an adult. You didn't need to be there for me.

For the rest of my adult life, you seemed to want to draw me in, just so that you could push me away. We arranged to talk with each other on the phone when I finally moved out of state with my second husband. I would be happy on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, begin to feel anxious on Thursday, become irritable on Friday, be unable to sleep on Saturday, and become resigned on Sunday. I would cry after our Sunday conversations, having heard for at least an hour about how well Mark was doing, how I could have done better for myself than my current husband, and how I was "too smart" to not have a college education. I tried to tell you about how happy I was with my writing. How I enjoyed the idea of finally moving south, how much I longed to hear you say that I was making positive changes in my life. These conversations went on for years, until I decided I had had enough of them.

When I learned that you had succumbed to deep depression a couple of years later, that they would only release you to your home if someone was there with you, I waited for Mark to tell me that he would come care for you. He lived less than a mile away. I was 600 miles away, in Georgia. Somehow, I found myself on a plane to you, disrupting my college semester, to come stay with you for almost two months. You had allowed me to come stay with you while I was recovering from a broken back a few years earlier, as Eddie was unable to care for me, so it seemed fair. The first thing you did was complain that the airline should not have allowed you to use your miles to allow me to come to you. Gee, Mom. Glad to see you, too. I wanted to feel that you appreciated my being there, even though your illness kept you from showing it, but you didn't. Not even just a little. You kept asking me when I was going home. Finally, I did. Did I waste those weeks? I still don't think you understand how hard I was reaching out to you, longing to feel some kind of attachment to you. I don't know if you resented me for being unable to find it, even then.

The last time I saw you in person was after my grandmother died. She was the last link that I had to family belonging. I have never been to New England again. But you, you came down to stay with me because you wanted to see how I was living. I offered to pick you up at the airport, but you decided to rent your own car and drive the 110 miles to McComb by yourself. I gave you perfect directions, you said. You were looking forward to the visit, you said. The first thing you said when you walked into my home was "you wouldn't know you had dogs in here. It doesn't stink at all." Wow. I don't remember much about the next three days, not until we returned to New Orleans for the football game. You hated it. The rowdy crowd frightened you. You got lost coming out of the stadium because I "gave terrible directions," and parked in the middle of the neutral ground on the streetcar tracks to "figure things out." You couldn't understand why I was yelling at you to move the car or why I got out of the car and started walking away. It was the story of our lives, all in those 30 seconds. You wanted to be in control. You wanted to be right. All I wanted for you to do was listen to me and understand that I was telling you something important. After I got back in the car, you yelled at me and berated me all the way back home. I kicked you out of my house that day--coming full circle. I didn't regret it. Not even just a little.

I have never told you this, but every single nightmare I remember takes place in your house or, at least, in the town where you raised me. I have a lot of them, but not as many as before I started writing them down as scenes in short stories. I no longer live in that house you saw and I will never tell you where I am. You don't have my phone number. You're lucky to have access to my Facebook page. I hardly post there any longer, anyway, so you're free to come look at my puppies and my dog-related triumphs and think you know something about me. But you don't. Not even just a little. And that's the way it is going to stay, for my peace of mind.

Oh . . . and that lack of attachment I felt? A few years back, someone gave me a tentative diagnosis of Asperger's syndrome. They offered to test me for it, to determine if the tentative diagnosis was accurate. I never told you or anyone else about it, because it came too late to make a difference. I wonder, would it have made a difference if you'd looked for a reason that we could not connect? Would we have been happier? Would I be writing you a much different letter, telling you how grateful I was that you'd been my mother? Because I'm not. Not even just a little. And my heart breaks for knowing it's the truth.