Iris-Goo Goo Dolls

ash
Originally uploaded by lawa.

I have actaully turned into my Mother
...Sad to Admit

She would sit in the kitchen for hours on end, smoking, drinking and staring into space. She had the radio on in the background...Tom Jones, Elvis, Neil Diamond. She would cry...no weep, and smoke, and drink. She would get up once in a while to use the bathroom.

I never really understood it.
I had little knowledge of why she was crying.
I had no idea what she was staring at...
... into space
I am now my mother.

I came down from my room tonight to dicuss the fact that an agreement had been made, just hours before it was broken. 17 was not to use the car this weekend, due to his disrespectful behavior towards me regarding nondisclosing facts about his where abouts prior. It is not as if he was somewhere he should not have been. It was just that he did not tell the truth, and when asked to discuss it in an adult manner, he blew me off with more than the flick of a wrist. 2 hours later I overheard H give him permission to drive. I felt deceived. I was deceived. So I came down to challenge the permission given, getting an earful from both parties. All in all, he did not get the car, but I was on both of their hate lists. Lovely.

So i sat in the ktichen. Radio on, pac of smokes burning a hole through my lungs, bottle of wine slowly depleating, looking too much like my mother. Every once in a while someone would walk through the room. I watched the snow fall out the window.

I often wondered what she could be thinking about...all that time, so many hours just sitting and smoking. I was thinking about where I could transform myself...where a magical time capsule could take me.

I contemplated a question posed just recently in my direction. What events of my life would I relive if I could? What would I go back and repeat if so possible?
...certainly not the times in my mother's kitchen...

It took a lot of thinking. I have so many unfullfilling memories that it is difficult to conjure up a moment that is worth reliving. All of those memories, childhood, teenage, 20'something memories have good pieces that end with a sigh. I'd start thinking and smiling, only to come up with a challenging moment at the end of each one. Why was I torturing myself so?

Childhood comes with memories of lonliness and arguments between my parents.
Teenage dreams turned into heartache of sorts.
20' something found me married and taking on repsonsibilities that I was unsure of.

I could go back to a party at the lakefront...a day turned into night that brought a smile until I am disappointed in myself for one reason or another.

I could go back to graduation and friends...a day turned into night that brought relief until I am reminded that my parents did not show up.

I could go back to many moods of happy places and events....i could.

But I still find myself in my kitchen, with the radio, a bottle of wine, a pac of cigs and myself.
I haven't been in t his horrid space for a while...or so it seems.
Last year was much more difficult with 17 than this...it is only that I say NO a lot less often....it keeps the house happier...him happier...but sometimes the rules must be enforced...by someone...by ME.

I'm still thinking of a place to go, somewhere in the past that was a good place. A vacation might be one...the Hawaii trip senior year...no parents, just friends...but then again, there was that incident of one evening there that almost had me killed, in a hotel room of a new aquaintence with anger issues.

I've never been alone, on my own.
I've never been me.
I've never been allowed to make decisions that did not involve another.
I've always done the right thing.
Follwed the rules...bending them a bit.
Is that why everything seems so dissapponting?
No sense of self?
No sense of Time?
On my own?

Mental Note:
See...numerous days at home without going into work are worse than going to work.

H snowblows the inches of snow outside as I type.
17 plays games on his newly aquired computer components that he was recently gifted. 15 is out, growing an ever expanding life as a freshman, needing me less and less, abandoning me here.

They are all planning to go out in the morning...head out for a good part of the day. They will leave me here to use more than the kitchen...but I still picture myself at the island, with my smokes, and the radio...maybe a few movies on HBO.


"And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming
Or the moment of truth in your lies
When everything seems like the movies
Yeah you bleed just to know your alive

And I don't want the world to see me
Cause I don't think that they'd understand
When everything's made to be broken
I just want you to know who I am "
-Goo Goo Dolls