My battle or battles with my mom, from the time I could think for myself, have always been deeply intertwined with love, respect, and hatred.
That is why I allowed her to treat me the way she did for so long. Like I've stated, my expectations from my mother were much higher than that of my fathers. This is because I trusted myself with my mother, completely. I trusted her with the dreams I wanted to achieve, with my fears of instability, and my yearning to compensate for the life she lost by having us, her children.
I respected my mother so much that I believed everything she said to be factual for years. Then I started to think on my own and all my views, her teachings, and my opinions became muddled together. Only once I moved away at eighteen years old, did I begin to find some sort of independent thinking, some bits of truth. I was heartbroken to realize how much my mom used me, to hear her excuses of our evictions. She told me, "I didn't know any better." This is what she said to me as I stood in my rental home hallway after asking why; why did she use me that way. I couldn't believe that while I was paying her three-hundred dollars every Friday, for the smallest room in the house, she was out buying shoes and purses and NOT paying the bills. In the process, I started to hate her and it took me eight years to love her again.
When I was young and naive, I loved my mother disgustingly - oh how I loved her. How could I not love her? She was the one who stayed. She didn't abandon me like Bruce. She was the one who sacrificed. After beating us for not doing our homework, she would scream these words into the rafters of our home, telling us how lucky we should be that she wasn't some drug-induced or alcoholic mom who didn't care about her kids. She always made us watch kids whose parents obviously abused substances and she would say: "Look. See how nice they treat their parents. And their parents are zombies. I guess I have to be a drug addict to get any respect around here." This was brought on to us because we did not clean the steps when we cleaned the house.
It took me years to understand that what my mother wanted, so desperately, was to be worshiped by us. She wanted her children to excite at the sight of her, yet she was not willing to uphold her part, of being someone notable of our praise - she thought birthing us was enough in itself - and I fell for it.
Let me tell you, my mom, even with all her problems could do absolutely no wrong in my eyes. She was it, she was always right, she was the peak and path of guidance to me. As much as I hated the excessive church-going (Sunday school in the mornings, vacation bible school every summer, bible study on Tuesdays, choir rehearsal on Wednesday, church clean up on Saturday, and Sunday service from seven in the morning until eight that evening on Sunday.), I did it all because my mother wanted me to. At her request, I drew portraits of pastors who I didn't care for and watched her parade them in front of the congregation, finding acceptance in people who she deemed worthier than her - people she wanted to sit shoulder-to-shoulder with in life and status.
I watched her and felt sorry for her. Because I pitied my mother, I let her use me. Coming of age, there were a lot of times where I did not know what was going on, but on the days that I did, I ignored my true feelings to please my mother. I knew in my mind that while God was not real to me, he was ever present to my mother. I hid that women were just as fantastically alluring as men, and when my mother sat me down and told me that liking girls was a sin, I agreed. She caught me many times watching shows that I had no business watching or every right to see.
I will never forget the night my mother would attend our church's ladies slumber-party. She had watched one scene from the movie, The Color Purple, about fifty times; the scene where Shug Avery sings to Miss Celie in the juke-joint. My sister Kiara and I kept rewinding back to the part, writing down the words as Shug Avery sang them, handing them over to our mother to learn and recite. My mother had planned to attend the slumber-party and during the women's encouragement portion of the night, she was going to sing Shug Avery's song. We spent hours rehearsing, my mom being Shug, Kiara and I being her audience. Then, after finishing one wonderfully performed rehearsal, she said to my sister and I: "I don't think I will do it. What if they think I am gay?"
I was so fucking confused and so ridiculously upset. More so because I just spent three hours of my life having fun with my family, participating in something joyous, then being shot down - and all for the possibility that one woman at the church would, take the song in the wrong way.
I tried to tell my mother that the song had nothing to do with gayness, nothing to do with a woman wanting another sexually. That she was right for choosing that song in the first place. I made her watch it again, telling my mom every few seconds that the song was encouragement to Miss Celie; to know her worth, a push to find a life outside of her abusive husbands home, and that she was indeed a somebody.
But my mom had already made up her mind. Because the movie did address the connection, sexually, and non sexually between the two main characters, who did indeed share a kiss in the movie. My mother deemed the song as gay - which of course could not be sung at the women's sleepover held by the church.
YOU ARE READING
Three Miles in Baltimore
Non-FictionI was born in Baltimore, Maryland to a single struggling mother of four. Last year, in the midst of a mental breakdown, I began writing. I wrote in hopes of understanding my depression. I wrote to calm my ever present anxiety. I wrote to acknowledge...
