Memories

I have started reading a new book by Alice Sebold called "The Almost Moon". Knowing her style of books, I should have known that it would open a few mental crevices that I hadn't explored much recently. Her writing has a way of challenging ideas that we have - at least making us think about things a bit more deeply. Anyway, this one is about a woman who kills her mother - she is old and sick, so perhaps it is more appropriate to say 'euthanized' than killed. Her intent though is a little more along the 'killed' vein, particularly as this is something that she has thought about all her life.

Her mother is a nasty and cold character, not the loving mother normally portrayed. Of course, with my own experiences of a cold and distant mother, I have had occasion to think a little more about my own experiences. In the book, the daughter tells us of her fantasies when growing up of cutting up her mother and posting her around the country. She thought this was a normal thing for daughters to think about until realising with some acuity that it is not, in fact, normal - at all. While I have certainly thought about my mother's eventual demise from this mortal coil, I can't say I have ever thought of chopping her up or having an active role in it. (although she has a fondness for blaming me for a range of non-existent health complaints). What has happened recently though is that memories of her behaviour have started coming through the mental barrier again. Today's is a memory of her making me lie face down on my bed while she belted me across the back with my step-father's belt. She slapped me across the face and I went to slap her back.... in my current fantasy, when she attempts to slap me, I grab her arms and push her against the wall telling her that she will not touch me again, she will not raise her voice at me again and she will stop behaving like a banshee. I feel good about this, in some versions of this I slap her back before grabbing her arms back but I prefer not to... taking away the violence from the scene is somehow more rewarding and certainly more empowering (although grabbing her by the wrists and restraining her is not the most non-confrontational thing I could do). Perhaps it is a sense of control over her rather than the other way around that I feel good about.

I wish I'd had more strength when I was young to be able to stand up to her. I sometimes wish I had the strength now to tell her how she affected me. Then I think how happy I am in my life now and realise that this is the real victory. There is no better thing than to know that leaving her was the best decision I could have made, that she was wrong about my Father (life can actually be happy all the time - people are not going to change when the 'reality' of life creeps back in), and that my life is infinitely better without her being a part of it and that family is something to be found and earned - not something that can just be expected, regardless of how people are treated.

This was all good fuel for a big walk with the hairy one!