The Reality of the Imagination

This weekend was my daughter's weekend with her dad.

On those weekends, The Sass is with him from Thursday afternoon until Monday morning.

Those weekends destroy me a little bit. Still.

As it happened, this past Friday I had to stop by and drop something off for her before school because it was due that day and she had forgotten it.

As she came around the corner, her face was pure light and magic.

My heart was immediately warmed by her big and dancing green eyes and dangling front tooth.

Since we had both believed we would not see each other until Monday, we were both excited.

I gave her her envelope, kissed her goodbye, and headed to my car.

My throat immediately tightened and my eyes began to burn.

I could not believe the happiness and love I felt from that 60 second exchange.

I wondered if my mother had ever burst into tears at the sight of me or my sister.

...I mean, I am sure she did (especially regarding me), but I am not sure they were happy tears...

I mean, when I was younger, before she left us, I had semi-worshipped her. I think that was because I could never get her to smile or love.

She was angry and tired all the time.

Though she had for quite some time worked in pediatrics, I could find no evidence that the woman actually liked children. Any children.

She wasn't mean (yet) but she was completely indifferent to our existence on the planet.

She didn't become mean until I was 8 and I never knew what made her snap...but she didn't unsnap until I was almost 28.

Had my mom ever felt the amount of happiness that I have felt over the past 17+ years since giving birth to my big brown eyed wonder, Ty?

Had she ever looked into my sister's or my eyes and felt absolute love?

Had she ever watched us sleep (without wanting to put a pillow over our heads or have a "do over" and get an abortion)?

Had there ever been a time when just seeing us happy or hearing us laugh made her smile or feel good?

What gives some women this ability to love while others seem to have an eternal backorder which will never be filled?

While my mom and I have a relationship now, and she openly expresses love and affection toward me, I still often wonder where that came from after almost 28 years of it being either dormant or non-existent...

As Ty and I wrestled and tortured each other before our dates with our significant others last night, I felt myself getting choked up about how grown up he has become, how strong he is, and how soon he will leave for college...

Time was moving too fast for me.

As Jay and I chatted over dinner, I felt the fastness of time closing in on me and tightening like a vice around my chest.

My mom left when I was 10. I was on my own when I was Ty's age, and in a blink I was about to turn 27 and was being diagnosed with cancer...

In another blink, I was 37 and had lost a decade to the fight.

I have few memories of childhood and even fewer memories of being allowed to simply be a kid.

I remember getting my first bike (it was yellow with a super obnoxious flowered banana seat), and being jealous that my best friend got the same bike but in a super cool purple.

Justine always had the better stuff.

She was prettier, with blonde hair and blue eyes and I looked like my dad, which pissed off my mom.

Justine had better toys too. Her mom was pretty liberal, so Justine had the Jaws game and one Christmas she even got the most controversial toy of that time...a baby Joey doll which enraged conservatives because he was anatomically correct.

I loved playing at Justine's house, where we could make all the noise we wanted and her grandma allowed us to make mud pies and also make our own dough in the kitchen, regardless of the mess that created.

Kids were not allowed over my grandparents' house...which is where I spent weekends and my childhood would end every Sunday night when I had to return to the house of hell where my mom and step-dad lived.

My mom was completely against my making friends and although she wanted me out of the house from sun up until the street lights came on, she preferred that I did not play with other children.

(She believed friends were simply future enemies who would fuck you over and hurt you. She had been hurt in her childhood by such a person and they could not be trusted. I think it involved a charm bracelet of some sort, but I can't remember exactly and never wanted to ask her a second time.)

I used to ride my big blue Schwinn (which had been red when I found it in someone's garbage but my step-dad painted it in case they weren't really throwing it away and I had accidentally stolen it) all over our neighborhood and beyond...not realizing that I really shouldn't be riding in some of those places. I was 8.

I lived for the weekends at my grandparents' house and never once recall my mother being sad that I was leaving or being happy upon my return.

She was busy with my sister, who was a year old and quite frankly one of the whiniest creatures ever born. (To my knowledge, this has not changed, but I am fairly certain she is at least potty trained now.)

OK, that last part is a joke. I mean she was a whiney little kid, but they all are. She is actually 30 now and in spite of sharing the same mom, she actually also loves her 2 kids. (She is whiney though.)

As I looked at Ty, I could not imagine not loving him and I can say this even after he went through a pretty remarkable brat phase in middle school.

I felt really lucky.

I also felt sad that I didn't have moments of closeness with my mom and only recall her cracking up 3 times...and those were all in 1995 when I was already a mom and had developed a pretty interesting sense of humor. (This was also right before I moved REALLLLLLY far away from her to Missouri...which for 3 years she mistakenly believed was Mississippi because I refused to correct her and would talk in a Southern drawl during the rare occasions when we were forced to speak to each other.)

This is indeed a fantastic portrait of love and function, yes?

Anyway, as I fast forward to today, when communication (and the fact that the Colts are in the Super Bowl) worked out positively for me, I was over the top excited when my ex delivered the beautiful Sass to my door so that she could attend a commercial watching party with us and play with her friends whilst her dad could actually pay attention to watching his hometown team win the game...

Again, she walked in and immediately brightened the room as she knowingly smiled at her brother and I.

I wondered what type of child I would have been had I had the confidence of my mother's love.

I wondered what type of person my mom would have been if she had ever realized how amazing it is to actually receive love from her children instead of dismissing it as inferior to the love of a man...which she never received and eventually stopped searching.

I found myself feeling sad for my mom, who now sits alone many nights allowing her mind to go numb in front of the television, which has never broken her fragile heart.

As I look at my two children, who are both easily brought to giggles and playfulness, I cannot help but allow myself to remember my mom's laugh and imagine what it would be like to goof around with her.

As time and reality smack me hard across the face, I realize that my life will never experience that moment...nor will hers...and it saddens me.