Escape Your Grasp

        It was as if she had this power over me. This power that no matter my will, no matter how “Irish” I was, I couldn't break it. I had lost so many opportunities because of her guilt trips. I always hear about the Jewish Mother's guilt, but they had never met an Irish woman I guess. Because they lay their guilt on so thick you drown in it. By now I am sure you have realized this woman with an excess amount of power over me is my mother. Now I will say right now, I am not bashing her! She is my mother who birthed me so she automatically gets respect right there, but I will no longer sit in silence. I also ask, if you review this piece to be respectful , because I very much believe in respecting the dead.
        My mother passed away on April 3, 2010. So I sit here just 3 months from the year anniversary of her death. And may I be honest? It is easier to be angry at her than to cry, to miss her. My mother had two faces, the one everyone else knew and the one we knew. She would snap at the drop of a dime, and once she did your best bet was to run and hide. There were plenty of times I swore she was going to kill either me or one of my siblings. And she was very open about her hatred for me. She never wanted me in the first place, and when I became her biggest disappointment she let it be known that I was the biggest mistake she had ever made. When my grandmother passed away four years ago next month, my mother made it painfully clear that she wished me dead instead of my Nana, even if she had wished her dead just weeks before she actually died.
        I was never sure how to please my mother, or what exactly I had done to make her hate me so much. I tried everything, I even gave up my chance to go to Cambridge College Writing Program. And though I know what a chance that would have been for me and my writing, I am happy that I didn't go. I likely would have never been there when my grandmother and grandfather died. I likely would have never met my boyfriend, who I love very much, and would rather NOT image my life without him. But people, this program was AMAZING! I am a big fan of William Shakespeare, though I myself do not write much poetry, he was an amazing poet. And his plays have more than once helped me write my screenplays. And in this program I could have stayed in his house for the SUMMER!! And then I would go to Stonehenge and things like that. Now I am simple Southern Belle from a quaint town on the Gulf Coast so this would have been more than life changing for me. Now that I'm older, I realize what an opportunity I missed.
        Though I have so much anger pent up from the 18 years I suffered with my mother, I have so much pain inside of me too. It is the child inside of me that weeps, the one who is still begging for Mommy to see them, to love them. The child who is begging Mommy to save them from the merciless hands of her pedophelic father, who is going to savagely take from the child what isn't his. The child who cries for her grandpa to stop, for her mommy to save her. That is the part of me that breaks down every now and again. But the angry part of me, the teenager who gave up everything, lost out on amazing opportunities, the one who hates the very sight of themselves because of her mothers constant belittling, the one who more than once tried to end their life so the hitting, belittling and raping would stop, she is too angry to let go.
        So I am torn into pieces. Do I hate her? Do I love her? Do I owe her for making me what I am? Do I wish I had never been born so that I wouldn't have the emotional scars I have? So some nights I lie there, and the child in my cries while the teenager in me boils in anger. Either way, even in death this woman, the woman who gave me life yet almost caused me to end it still has this power over me that I hope to one day escape.