Today (may 8th) is my mother's birthday. Tomorrow is Mother's Day.
This weekend always feels weird to me. i like when her birthday and Mother's Day fall on the same day, 2 birds one stone.
I always feel awkward. I used to completely not care about Mother's Day at all. I had always thought and read in stupid Instagram info graphics that only good mothers deserved a Mother's Day. However I felt insanely guilty just ignoring her. My dad would take my sisters and I to 5 below and tell us to pick out a gift for her. Out of spite, I would pick the stupidest most useless thing I could find. One year I got her a bouncy ball, so obviously you could tell I put in no effort. I would feel so guilty about it though. My dad would passively validate my anti Mother's Day thinking, even though neither of us said anything about it.
When I was little, I would make a big deal out of mother and Father's Day. I would wake up early and clumsily try to make a bowl of cereal for when my parents would wake up. I was like below 10 so it was the best I could do. Usually they would just pour it out and we'd go to breakfast. Once when I was about 8 I had spent a while making my mom something out of play doh for Mother's Day. It was something dumb like a little cake and flowers. When she came home she yelled at me about it, which prompted an argument between her and my dad.
I know I sometimes make it seem like she's the worst person in the world, but she's not. Before everything got bad I have very fond memories of staying home from school or Saturday mornings when we'd be up early and we'd lay on the couch and watch Maury or Jerry Springer. She'd ask me to rub her back and always told me I was very good at it, which I really held close to my heart (in retrospect she probably told me this just so I'd keep doing it but I still enjoyed thinking I was good at something) I would also watch a lot of horror movies with her.
The other day I was looking through her really old Facebook photos trying to find something. It really bummed me out. Prior to everything bad, it all seemed so good. She was pretty, there were nice group photos, lots of posts of my and my sister, it was just nice. I often wonder what things would be like now if nothing bad ever happened. I don't think much.
I don't know what'll happen this Mother's Day. Probably nothing if I'm being honest. Who knows if I'll even see her.
You always told me Father's Day was just another way
Of selling Hallmark greeting cards
Twenty Years of waking sleep, of lying through your teeth,
Meant every Father's Day spent wondering who the hell you are.
What's the point in making vows that you're never going to keep?
A lifetime lying awake means you'll never get to sleep.
And all the promises you made, that were painful and untrue,
Of all the things you do they reflect worst on you.
