How things are.

Let me preface this by saying that my mother had an extremely bad head injury.  Sixty-six stitches across her forehead.  Eight below her left eye.  I almost lost her.  A few hours before it happened, a man said to me, "you love your mom don't you?"  I looked over at her and she had a smile.  I said "yes."  He assured me that my mom loved me too.

Then when it happened I looked down at her face that was covered in blood.  Red was bleeding into the whites of her eyes.  She stared up at me in a daze and a smile slowly appeared on her face.  I immediately laid down.  If I wouldn't have, I would have passed out.  I thought I was going to lose my mother.

In a way, I did, because she was never the same due to the brain damage that occurred.

I remember I made her cry when I criticized the big gashes her face.  It hurt her but it hurt me just as much.  I wish I could go back in time and erase what I said.

My dad said to me, shortly afterwards, "Nicole at some point you just start to realize that, you know, things just are the way that they are.  And there is nothing you can do about it."

My mom has been emotionally abusive to me since it happened, as most people know.  She's always been a provider, the bread winner in our family.  But that's really that only thing she's got going for her as a parent.  Part of me understands why though.  She grew up in poverty, lived in an orphanage for a portion of her life, had a schizophrenic mother, had to steal food to eat, was sold into prostitution, had multiple abortions as a result, had a sister that was violently raped and disappeared...

My mom had a rough life.  So rough that she never really got to develop parenting skills.

Yesterday, completely 100% unprovoked, she bashed me.  She kept pushing and pushing.  Harder and harder.  But I refused to fight back.  It's not in my nature.  I don't like to fight.  After about 40 minutes of it, I couldn't take it.  I said one thing.  ONE thing.  And it ended in her telling me that she hopes I get AIDS and rot.  She hung up on me.  She's done this stuff to me before.  Many times.  Once I stopped talking to her for about six months.

This time was different though.  I didn't cry.  I didn't drink myself to near death.  I handled it well. Going to bed was impossible though.  All of the sad feelings crept up on me.  In the dark I stared at the ceiling thinking about how glad I am that my father didn't buy me a gun, because death has been looking awfully more shiny here of late.

More shiny than it ever should.

Today my dad called me.  I answered and he asked me what's wrong.  I told him what happened and advised him that I did nothing wrong.  He agreed with me.  He begged my mom to take the phone but she refused.  "Talk to your daughter" he kept saying but she refused the phone.  After a good ten attempts, she grabbed the phone and said "what?" in a nasty tone.  I said, "I just wanted to talk about work."  She threw the phone at my dad.  He begged her again.  After nearly ten minutes, she finally talked to me.  No apology of course, and she still things she's completely in the right.  And she probably still wishes I get AIDS and rot...

But I'm glad we're talking.  I can't take another holiday alone in my living room.  I can't hurt my dad anymore because my mother is deteriorating mentally and saying things that a mother should never say to a daughter.  My dad deserves a daughter who's always there during holidays. So does my grandmother.  And I'm not going to let my mother ruin that.

I'll be civil.