People Don't Want to Be Fixed

It began with my birth. That's how we met, after all.

And I suppose things were fine up until the divorce. Or maybe even after. Maybe things were fine until the affair. And actually maybe things were fine then, too, all the way up until the death. Not of you or I, but of your second husband. That's when the slow breakdown---the avalanche of us---began.

I hadn't always been a perfect daughter. Close though. Sure, I made straight As and didn't sneak out and rarely talked back, but that didn't stop the decline. I think we were always too good of friends. Mothers and daughters should be just that---mother. and daughter. Full stops separating, not removing us from closeness and love and care and camaraderie but setting a necessary boundary.

So perhaps it was my birth that put into motion this long, winding rollercoaster. It was the third husband, though, that really set off the chain reaction.

My first fault is this: I got defensive. I let you know I didn't like this. I let you know, if not in so many words, that I had sat by your bedside for months after the tragedy and this situation reeked of the same sick ending of that twisted tale. Not a tale, I correct, Our life.

My second fault? I fought back. I retreated into my shell, I was not the warm, kind, bleeding heart you had known me to be. Thoughts became words when they once would have simply died on my tongue. Not again would I let some stranger come between me and my mom, me and my friend. But the more I fought it, the more the wedge slid sneakily in, driving us apart. Maybe that's my fault, maybe not.

My third fault is certain, though. I stayed standing when you fled. Something in me wonders if when you left had I broken down instead of staying strong, would it have made you see? Would it have opened your eyes to the repeating sequence? To the sadness and heartbreak that was coming off of me in waves disguised as anger and indifference? I stood tall. I braved the storm. You saw this, and perhaps you figured I was fine.

Then, I stopped trying. I gave up. That, I suppose, is my fourth fault. How can both staying strong and crumbling be faults? Is there no right answer?

All I know is, I made it worse. Not talking, not trying, not letting you know I still loved you. Truthfully, it's because I feared you didn't feel the same. Your love had changed---new form and figure, so did it reach me anymore? If it did, could it fit into the old hole left in me when you took it away? I couldn't bear the answers to those questions plaguing me being no.

Even now, I know it sounds like I'm not taking responsibility. Well it takes two to tangle a rope into an unescapable knot. I'm not taking responsibility for your side. That would add yet another fault to the long line. But I hope you can trust that I'm really trying to take responsibility for mine. Am I doing it well enough? Am I yet again at fault? Does it matter?

Believe me that I wanted things to get better. You made me a fixer. That's what we do, consciously or not. We find broken people and want to heal them, want to find good for them. It makes us great people to have around. It makes us miserable people to have to be.

Here's where our efforts get dicey: people don't want to be fixed. I learned this lesson from you. Not in the way you'd think, not because of something you did, learned from, and passed onto me. Rather because our dynamic shifted into this place. Me as The Fixer, you as The Broken. This is when I found that broken people don't always know that they're broken. They can drag along their clipped wings and shattered limbs and think the path only got harder to walk. It couldn't possibly be that they are no longer equipped to walk it.

You came back, eventually. Traipsed in with pieces mostly intact. I was slow to break from the frozen statuesque state you left me in, forced me into. That I allowed myself to enter. I'm not good at admitting when I'm wrong. I wonder where that trait came from? It seems my birth is the catalyst, after all. Being born to you as my mother made me who I am. For better or for worse.

I can't say things are perfect now. Our relationship still creaks and bows under heavy weights, not yet solid again. Again? Was it ever?

But you're getting older, and I'm wanting that relationship back, whatever it was or will be. Like the problem solver I am---the fixer---I wish I could only see the solution. The end. I could work my way backward from there and make all the right decisions. Now, though things are improving, I still find myself occassionally making it worse. One step forward, two steps back.

Every time I hold back an emotion or check out during a conversation or don't answer a call, I'm punishing myself as much as I'm punishing you. Don't you think I want to run into my mother's arms and cry? Expel all the hate and resentment that we've built over these past years? Even now don't you know I love you? That I want to help you?

People don't want to be fixed. We've seen it firsthand. Why did we think we were different? Why did we think we were whole?

I confess my faults, I confess the moments I could have repaired things, I confess the times I made a directly defiant decision instead of giving in to the easier one. Instead of stepping back, letting go, and leading with love. Maybe that's the real fix. Maybe things need to get worse before they get better. I hope so.