I’m sitting here thinking about my mother. Doing that makes me cry. The dinner party I gave last night was for my Leather mom. She turned 57. Her actual birthday is on the 6th, but it was better to do the party on Saturday, obviously. The 6th is also my biological mother’s birthday. The only thing I am going to do to acknowledge it is cry. My mother is turning 61. I obviously missed her 60th birthday as well. And. And. And.
I am about to put a book out into the public that says very bad things about her. I talk extensively about why I cannot forgive her. I just can’t give her that gift in this life time. That’s the consequence of her actions. It’s hard that actions can have unintended consequences, but it is part of life. You have to deal with them.
I will never know if my mother forgives me or not. I hope she does. As much as I feel bad for wanting this, I want my mommy to forgive me. I want my mommy to be able to take the high road for once in her fucking life. I want her to really and truly understand how badly I was hurt by what happened to me. I want her to forgive me even though I can’t forgive her.
The song that is on is I’m Moving On by Rascal Flatts. I have these on random, I swear. Well, ok now I put this one on repeat for a few minutes while I write this entry. I’m meditating on this song. I did imagine that home would be a place I wouldn’t belong.
Maybe some day I’ll find forgiveness somewhere on down the road. From when I was a teenager I would write the word forgive over and over and over again. I used to write it all over my pants. My mother got so angry with me. I’ve never been sure who I am supposed to forgive. What does it mean to forgive?
I put a huge tattoo on my back of me reaching for forgiveness. It’s what I want more than anything else. I want forgiveness for the hurt I have caused. I was trying to save my life. I swear I didn’t use excessive force. I just wanted to save me. I’m sorry for all the unintended consequences. I’m so so so so so sorry. I cannot express how sorry I am that Tommy is dead and my dad is dead. I wish that Tommy was somewhere getting the treatment he needs without my involvement. I wish that my father was rotting in a jail cell.
I want forgiveness for being unable to forgive my mother for marrying abusive son of a bitch. I can’t forgive her for telling me that I made my bed now I have to lie in when he was raping me. I can’t. I didn’t make that bed. She did. She chose him for my father, not me. She let me stay in house unsupervised. I was a child. I wasn’t responsible. She was.
Ok, so she didn’t know she was doing it. So what? It was still her responsibility and she failed. And instead of supporting me after it happened she shamed me and silenced me and punished me and acted like it was my fault. I can’t forgive her for doing that to me. I can’t. I deserve better treatment than that. A fucking dog deserves better than that.
Grieving hurts. Part of what hurts so much is having to acknowledge my disgusting hypocrisy on this topic. I hate that I want other people to do things I am completely unwilling to do myself. I think it is a massive character flaw.
But sometimes agreements are asymmetrical. No matter what happens in this life I will always have to forgive my children. They will not have to forgive me. It makes me wary about parts of our relationship. I don’t take it for granted that they will want to have a relationship with me. I know I need to earn it. Earning it is hard. I don’t have good models for how to be the kind of parent someone would want to keep knowing.
What does it mean to forgive anyway?