Mommy Dearest

Today was, well, beyond description. We went to lunch with my mother, Fifi Sis, her Other Half and their Smallest Minx. Highlights of the meal included:

• My mother telling Fifi Sis it's best not to invite her to Smallest Minx's christening, due to the massive family rift caused by my mother which has rendered her unwelcome at family gatherings. The fact that no such christening is planned did not deter my mother from wringing every last drop of faux-torture and projected guilt from this imagined selfless act.
• My mother announcing that she is buying a new car. This will be the third new car this year. My mother is unfamiliar with the concept of depreciation. My mother is familiar with the concept of massive maintenance payments from my ex-stepfather.
• My mother explaining that the best way to introduce babies to solid food is to pin both arms to their sides and just sort of stuff the food into their mouths. My mother is unfamiliar with the concept of effective, loving child-rearing. My mother is not beloved by her children.
• My mother announcing to the table that I lost my virginity at the age of eleven. My mother is unfamiliar with the concepts of dignity, social awareness and acute embarassment. She is also unfamiliar with the concept of truth. My mother is, apparently, mental.

I could go on, but frankly the two hours spent in the company of my mother have rendered me exhausted. On the one hand, it makes me sad that I don't really have any sort of relationship with her. She is utterly devoid of any interest in me, and sometimes I become irrationally convinced that I am part of a social experiment to see how far the mother-daughter relationship can be stretched and still survive. I am sad that she is unable to show any love, and I am sad that, should this change, I would be totally unable to accept love from her. It would make me cringe and fidget and want to run away. We rub along in a sort of prickly cold war, with the occasional skirmish related to her mentalness and inability to say anything nice at all, ever. I am sad that the emotional legacy she bequeathed me in my childhood is taking so fucking long for me to let go of. I am sad that, effectively, I have no real mother. I sort of want one. I sort of want someone to be interested in my life, to be proud of my achievements, to love me. I want someone who kept my school reports, who remembers things I did as a child with a smile, instead of only recalling the things I did that reflected badly on them. I want someone who understands that, when you're five or nine or twelve or fifteen, money, clothes and expensive holidays don't compensate for the lack of a stable, loving family. I want someone who would have chosen the happiness of her children over the material wealth of her own life. I want someone to feel affection for, instead of contempt and a longing for something more. But it's too late, and I could cry forever for that.

On the other hand, she's taught me what not to do while raising my own daughter, and for that at least I will be eternally grateful.

Oh, fuck it. Ignore me. Normal service will be resumed tomorrow.

Carry on.