afufle | (no subject)

I made a new journal for dreams, used to keep them in my pirating journal, but that does seem kind of backward or something.

Some years ago I noticed that there were some photographs missing, of me at various times mostly in adulthood. I was a bit irritated when my mom took them out of the family photo box and selfishly used them for a Forum homework project album. I thought the family photos were to be shared. But she stuck them in her book and used rubber cement. I tried to tell her that rubber cement ruined photos, and how to mount them properly, I was nice about it. But she got that glazed, sick look she gets on her face when she's decided someone is being utterly a stupid Jesus-believing farm girl, and you sure can't pay attention to them. She just decides that it's okay, not to let anyone put anything over on her.

I was concerned about the future of my photos, rubber cement will soak through them permanently after a few years, leaving what looks like an oil stain. In the same album, she confesed to having had a miscarriage when she was still engaged to my dad. The photos and that page are all missing. I know it would be a huge mistake to point it out to her, or to anyone in my family. She will make excuses and punish me, and they will just make excuses.

The reason I mention the photos is because I do believe it was her who took them, to help erase the past. She gave me a book once, Healing Your Painful Emotions (David Seamands). Sometimes people have buried memories they have to dig up and deal with. One woman was looking through her photos from childhood, and noticed how sad her formerly cheerful face became at one point. She remembered the cause--she had been molested by a lesbian babysitter.

You might see where I am going with this--once I told my family my dad molested me--it was more or less a recovered memory, when I had begun to trust I could face it. It happened when I was a teenager. Well, at first she seemed sympathetic, then she kept saying things like that I wasn't forgiving, Liz just won't forgive, that's bad, Liz is bad. But I noticed she never pointed out what it was I was supposed to forgive, but she kept indicating it was her I wouldn't forgive.

Actually that fact about the book (which she only gave me to prove to me that I was SUPPOSED to forgive without being asked, that was another point made in the book, that you don't have to be asked in order to forgive), and the fact of the pictures being missing, both have been bothering me for years. A couple nights ago, I dreamed about my aunt bringing some photos to me, and in it I am wading almost hip deep in a dark dark river. That was the first dream I wrote about in the new journal, though I'll be copying and pasting from the old journal into the new one.

I don't think I ever remember her actually asking for forgiveness for anything. One other time she had a letter from Dear Abby she'd cut from the paper that she showed me to prove I am wrong, that I have to forgive her for anything she did to me. I guess bugger the idea she has to change her attitude to not abusing me any more, that it is okay for her to judge me.

The other day I woke up in the middle of the night, couldn't sleep, and got some dishes out of my room, put them in the sink to soak. And left them there. Not a pleasant thing to wake up to, so she took them out of the sink and poured the water out, wrote a note: "Please do not leave your dishes for others to wash". When I got up I read it of course. She was in the living room which is connected to the kitchen, and I just decided to snicker on the spur of the moment. Hnh, hnh, hnh.

Because she is always doing this, always pointing out how she is suffering, suffering so much. She forgets she got pregnant to trap a man into marriage, and after 18 years of marriage when he left and she'd decided the best thing to do was drink and party all the time, that a bit of prostitution was in order--oh, not for money, oh, no! But for goods and services, and to hurt anyone she could.

My grandfather was pretty well off, and gave her X amount of dollars to build a studio on the house, as she was making okay money at her pottery business which was based in the dingy basement. But there was no way it was enough, and I guess she couldn't ask him for more.

She knew her dad didn't approve of her, but my aunt told me it was because she let her husband abuse her kids. Which is true, he abused her too, even before they were married. He really abused us badly. But so did she, but not as loudly. Just as hurtfully though. It looks like she kept trying to impress him by having an impressive career and being extra special. Once she made this really good dish that she thought of all by herself, but I was hungry and I ate too much of it before dinner. She stood there with my sister next to her and cried about how he never approved of her and she knew this was a good recipe and how now she couldn't serve it to him.

I pooh-poohed her, because I thought Grandpa wouldn't think that way. I think it did made me feel bad. Years later I told my aunt that, my mom's younger sister, and she said no, being a very good chef would not make him like her. He disapproved because she married this man and he was abusive. Very. Very very sick. It probably made him feel bad about himself, too.

So anyway, she thought she could MAKE him like her, that he did not love her already. Even I believe my grandparents love me, even though I sure didn't always do the right thing. Belive me I didn't. I do understand why he was bitter with her. She has some kind of tragic flaw, that she believes in what she does, more than she believes in the fact that she is a human being, and that parents generally just love their children, even if they do so very imperfectly. Usually very imperfectly.

I think I caught her skeptical and material way of thinking, of thinking you could get control over whether other people like you. So I know how frustrated she was.

If there had been something she loved, something or someone she cared for and believed in, I think this would eventually transformed her and made her see better. But she sure seems to me to have settled for control, money, impressing and deceiving people. That just sure seems like what it is to me.

I'm still bitter about what I've been through with her, with her blaming me for all her problems. Now I know it's a typical alcoholic behavior, but she sure chose to keep trying to cure it herself. When she couldn't do that, she decided to hide it.

She would NEVER join any of the 'pathetic dummies' who try and try, go to rehab and 12-step meetings. And are happy and grateful to find something that works.

The funny thing is I recently had to decide she does have some love for me, or she does essentially love me, because she still lets me live at home. The thing is you have to believe you are worthy just because you are there, you have to have self-esteem, apart from being better than anyone else. Because there is always someone who is going to be better than you, and worse.

It doesn't matter that it looks like you're not worthy. No one is worthy, but yet we all are.