On Being an 'Adult'

I read a line in a book the other day by, something along the lines of  'I never feel guilt because I know I do things to the fullest of my capacity' or something. I don't remember rightly and dipping through the book I can't find it. Frustrating.

Anyways.

I did not mean for this to be an unhappy sort of blog but the last post and this are turning out to be. Annoying, I know, but there are things happening to me that I really need to get out of my system.

Today I called my aunt and then today I called my mother.

My best friend (who I have a feeling is serious irritated as shit with me and our long distance shit is strained, etc) has been getting calls from my aunt in the states. Annoying calls. Calling her at work and calling her parents at home. My aunt wants to get ahold of me, etc. So I've been trying to call this past week or so between 8pm-11:30pm, which is AM there. I am seriously intimidated by my aunt and the first time I tried calling I realized I was shaking and could hardly breath. I feel guilt because I don't know if I should have kept in contact with my family even though they caused me a giant pain in the ass AKA; shitty childhood.

So after calling every other day for so long I finally got through tonight. Her sentences seemed slow and she sometimes didn't seem to understand immediately what I was talking about but I manned up and had a polite conversation with her, the 3rd one I've had since I've been in Australia for 2 years. It was sort of shitty but not as horrible as I thought it would be. I'm an adult now and it seems that I can ignore the past and speak civilized words at her. I guess I feel strong and confidant enough and realize that she has no power over me anymore. It's a scary thing being a child under the power of adults who are mentally ill. Anyways. She encouraged me to call my mother because my mother had 'tried her 24th suicide attempt last week.' Okay, give me the number.

This is the hard part.

Reading Jim Butcher's 'Changes' disturbed me alot this week. In this book the main down trodden hero character has to make a daring attempt to rescue his 5 or 7 year old daughter that he JUST found out he had in the first paragraph of the book. The main character had to go through alot of his childhood issues and alot of the talk left my eyes streaming. Things like the little girl wanted someone to save her just like he'd wanted years before and as her father he was going to break open his soul and rip heaven and earth apart to rescue this little girl that was his that he'd never even met. But I remember when I was in foster care (about 11 or 12 years old ) and for 2 weeks after I first arrived at the home I used to sit out on the porch swing for as long as they would let me and I used to watch the cars go by in hope that I would recognize one as my family. Someone was coming for me right? My uncles loved me, I'd see their expensive cars roll up and they would run in and hug me and take me away. When that didn't seem to be working out I started to develop elaborate fantasies about beautiful, immortal vampires who rescued me when I'd be walking at the park and they adopted me and took me to their big house and treated me like their favorite human daughter. Sort of like in The Little Vampire? I guess exactly like that, maybe without the flying vampire cows. This was, no doubt, due to my early love of R.L Stein's Goosebumps books and Fear Street series.

Magical vampire friends:Yeah :D !

The point is that I always wanted my mother, most of all, the problem with that being that she is bi-polar.

So after foster care I went to live with her for a year>She got sick and my aunt took me this time>I left my aunt's at 17 due to our strenuous relationship and through the next few years I always wanted my mother. She was in and out of hospitals and finally went to a permanent nursing home but I had a hard time and was living extremely rough in the ghetto of Toledo before finally renting in the beautiful city of Maumee. Life is hard when you live paycheck to paycheck and I started working nights as a cashier when I turned 18 and had to drop out of school during this time. I had private fantasies of my mother waking up from her false reality and we'd move in together, etc. Sometimes I'd rock myself to sleep crying for her or when I couldn't afford my rent and my electricity or my gas was shut off I'd break down.

I learned to shut these feelings off in a cold sort of ripping way.

To me she is not my 'mommy' anymore really, she is a person I love who has a history and some extremely unfortunate problems. There is a time in your life when you realize that the family you grew up with is someone beyond 'mommy' and 'sister in law,' that they have a history and they are real people.

She is a very sick person and now I feel like I know how to react to this.

When I was a teenager and we'd go see her I could NOT handle it. I went in and wanted to see my mommy, wanted her to rescue me and hold me and pet my hair but when I went in she would talk about meatballs in space or how she dreamed I had married the prince of England and we had 19 babies, etc.

As an adult I spoke to her today and I understood how to talk to her, finally. She could never be my mother anymore but I could let her know I was alright! Sure, I had to talk to her very slowly and sometimes explain things but I did it. I called and the nurses put me on hold and I felt terrible for not speaking to her for 2 years and I apologized to her and when she got spacey I was bold enough to bring her back to light conversation about my cats or whatever instead of clamming up and wanting things to be okay as I used to.

But I called her, finally. It's a huge relief that I didn't realize was stressing me out before. I suppose I have a loving new Australian family and they have given me strength and held me up and they have shown me what it means to love like a family should love! My husband and his mother mainly have helped me come out of my shell and they have taught me to be a stronger person than I have ever been in my life and I feel that they made it possible for me to call my mother, whom I realize I still love instead of fear for/need.

Etsy results for today's search:"Vampire Cows"

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