Mothers and Daughters, Redux

This is a portrait of a woman. One woman. And her impact on another life.

It's about my mother. This morning while reading posts with my coffee I came upon a post that made me stand up and take notice. The writer defined something so central to my mother's and my relationship (when we still had one) that I nearly gaped.

Funny that I couldn't define it before but sometimes when we're too close to something, it's difficult to see it clearly. It becomes blurred and far too long.

Anyway, my mother. Helene.

Helene was always beautiful and she knew it. She was interested in acting and singing which is probably why she was drawn to Los Angeles. She hounded my father relentlessly until he finally left his family, her family and all their joint relatives to head off across the country. Literally. From the east coast to the west. Helene was a very vain and very selfish woman.

Still, she wasn't happy. There was no Lana Turner story in her future, no matter how much she wanted it. She joined all the requisite groups, participated on the periphery of that world as much as possible. Just the same, outside of being hired for one commercial, she never made it big in Hollywood.

Shame!

Anyway, I was five or six years old then and she must have realized that although her own dreams might not come true, she could make them come true through me. If I didn't show the appropriate interest, that is when the abuse would start. It would be communicated on no uncertain terms that I was a failure and a disappointment. She would leave pictures of the daughters of her friends on the mantle because they were "good girls". Mine was not there. You do the math. Helene was not one to mince words and when she was disappointed, by God, someone was going to pay.

If I, a tomboyish kid, didn't want to go to the Barbizon School and spend time trying on clothes at Mackie's Deb Shoppe, it could only be because I was an inferior creature who didn't understand fully enough what my destiny was to be. I was being belligerent and rebellious. Belligerent or rebellious children did not deserve to be loved.

I was a bookish, nerdy kid who had no interest in those kinds of things. Never a girly-girl. I would rather get lost in biographies and hike in the mountains. Well.. if you consider Bel Air to be "the mountains" but let's not quibble! :)

During the years at home, I withdrew more and more. I found comfort in my books, in the radio, in television. I spent most of my time away of school hiding in my bedroom. I lived for the times when I wouldn't have to appear for a family dinner, preferring to take my food to my room where I could watch TV away from everyone else. During the weekends, I would take long, long walks and then come home to my room.

I didn't want to be anywhere near that woman because of the relentless criticism for every petty, minor infraction. If I held a fork wrong.. or spoke out of turn. If I wasn't dressed right. If my hair wasn't combed correctly.

Silence was always safe. I wanted to be invisible. If I kept everything I thought, believed or wanted to say inside, I would be safe. I learned how to separate from my Self. All these things were happening to someone else, not me.. not the me I protectively wrapped in an unpenetrable bubble. Life took on a feeling of unreality. It was like living in a movie.

The result of that is that it took a very long time to learn to know what I wanted or didn't want. I automatically assumed that my own thoughts were not reliable, that I was not reliable and I should not trust myself. I often trusted the wrong people to guide me. They were people who wanted to use or hurt me.

When I got old enough to move out, I went out into the world totally unprepared. I moved into a small cottage in West Hollywood and while I felt as though I could finally breathe without having to withstand the onslaught of criticism from that woman, I didn't know the first thing about maintaining myself. I made a ton of mistakes, some of them life-altering and very hard to repair. I also discovered alcohol.

I say all of this because in the post I read this morning, the woman/mother writing acknowledged that her children are not extensions of herself. She would never allow herself to feel disappointed because her children might not like or value the same things she does. All I could say is "yay!" and privately I thought "you just saved yourself a lifetime of heartache, not to mention your kids" because the cost of trying to live through someone else is very high for both sides.

We all come to this planet with our own lessons to learn. We (according to my belief) agree to certain situations because that is what our soul requires to grow. I believe I chose my mother because it forced me to separate myself from that, to recognize that my life belongs to me, that I can trust myself, that I have everything I need.

But it was a hard road, harder than it needed to be. I still carry the scars from that mother/daughter relationship, the one where the standards were impossibly high, that I couldn't have measured up because I simply don't have the talents she required of me. The consistent sense of my own inferiority is something that will probably never leave. I've learned to make peace with it.

These days, Helene and I don't have a relationship. That must be part of the agreement we made before we came here to live out this karmic dance. At the same time, it's a very painful road.. for both of us, I'm sure.

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