Lesava's blog: "Early Years"

I was a 10-month baby.  My mother brings it up every year on my birthday.  I wasn't coming out for nothing, and I did it just to make her life miserable.  I had to be taken out, and I was sleeping through the night immediately, and doing everything a one month old would.  You'd think that would make my mother happy.  It didn't, not by a long shot.  I was late, which messed with her; the fact that I was a GIRL, that was a BIG problem.  My mom wasn't going to be able to have more children after me, and there was no one to carry on our name, all my father's siblings and him had daughters, but I was the youngest one, so I got the most shit, I guess.

Being an only child has its good points.  You get spoiled to an extent, but the thing is, you aren't spoiled all the time with things you would like.  It's what they feel you need, and what they think will steer you in the right direction. 

My father was a sheriff in Los Angeles, and worked nights in the worst areas of the county, so my mother took all the brunt of parenting on.  He never did the disciplining, he spent mornings with me before he'd go to sleep, then my mother took over.  My mom had a rough life growing up, I'm the first to admit it.  But man, I was never going to be what she wanted me to be.  I've always been my father's daughter.  I look like Mom, but the emotional and mental part of me is all Dad.  I couldn't please her no matter what I did.  Marry a rich man, have a house with a white picket fence, and have 2.5 kids.  I didn't do any of those things, and she told me I was the biggest disappointment in her life.  She doesn't remember saying it.  I will never forget her saying it.

My dad wasn't pleased with certain things either that I did, and his lack of control over my mother was a bone of contention.  He told me before he passed that he should have done more to be an equal in my upbringing, and we were able to talk about everything that needed to be said.  At least he admitted to it.  Mom has the most selective memory of anyone I know.  She didn't throw me out of the house, I "left home".  I married my husband and ignored my family on purpose; in fact, my husband kept me from them, he had me beaten into submission, but she never accepted that.  A paternal uncle molested me when I was 7; my father was so emotional when I told him and Mom, my mother didn't say a word, didn't do a thing.  She told me later she didn't feel like it was her place to since it wasn't her brother.  WHAT?!?!  What kind of excuse is that?

Years later, I'm living with her.  It's the most stressful thing I've ever done.  Since I'm an only child, I have no one to lean on when I need a break, it's just me.  My mother has driven my dad's side of the family away, and her side is too far away to help.  How I keep it all in when I'm around her, I have no clue.  I learned that from her, I think.  I hope that is the ONLY thing I learned.  I can't be what she wants, or what my father wanted; I'm ME.  For good or bad, this is it.  

And I'm still alone........