The book of love

I was infuriated, I always was when I spoke to my mother. Her actions had been proof of my insignificance since before I was born. I had always been viewed as something she could use and manipulate to get what she wanted; Even the way I was brought into this world was just her manipulating my dad into staying with her. She told me that once, but she would never admit it sober.

They were on the verge of breaking up when my mom got pregnant with me. She knew my dad would never leave a child of his to be raised alone. She also knew he would want to get married, or at least that his parents would force him too. So, she kept me but not because she wanted me. She kept me because she wanted my dad.

In early years, when my parents were still together, I hardly knew my father. He hid from our house like his life depended on it. He spent his hours at work, away from her, and away from us. I think he wanted to leave, but he never would. He made a promise to God when he stood at the alter and they made their vows: for better or for worse, and God knows, she just kept getting worse. She blamed my father, she blamed me, in later years I learned she had even blamed my sisters for her miserable failures in life. Yet, she will still turn to her friends and tell them we are her pride and joy. Her lies make me sick. Her mind was always so mysterious to me, and the more she spoke, the more I learned to not trust a word she said.

I used to wonder why she wanted to leave us so bad. As a kid, no one explains things like depression, anxiety and suicide. People want you to remain innocent and pure. And honestly, fair enough. But growing up always being blamed and always being in the wrong, even when I knew I was right… It was very confusing. I spent my adolescent years trying to understand her, the way she jumped from one lie to the next. Grasping at whatever string would make her look the most like a victim. Like she wasn’t at the root of all her own problems.

She was diagnosed with bipolar before I was born and blamed everything she did on her condition. It took me years to really understand what being diagnosed with bipolar really means. It can look different for each person and there is more than one type, and if it is managed properly, you can live a good life. But the thing that really got to me, was having her constantly tell me I was going to get bipolar too.

When she left my dad, I was fourteen. She forced me to go with her, insisting that it was what was best for me. When I got home from school that first day in our new house, there she was draped over the brown pleather couch. Her eyes bloodshot and filled with tears. Her hands, stained blue from holding the pills so tight, trembling as they reached out to me. She laid there, broken, expecting me to comfort her, to feel sorry for her, but I couldn’t. She was supposed to be my mother, the one comforting me through my problems, not the other way around. I looked down at her with eyes as cold as stone. "You are pathetic", I knew it heartless but when it came to her, I never cared. Her cry grew louder as I turned and walked away.

“You don’t even care at all do you! I know you hate me, I know you wish I was dead.” She shouted.

I stopped and turned to face her again. “Don’t mom, seriously.” I rolled my eyes and poured her a glass of water. This was nothing but the usual. “Can you puke up those pills please?”

“No! You are right, I fucked everything up. I always knew he didn’t love me.”

I took a large bowl from the kitchen cupboard and placed it beneath her lips.

“Puke now, or I’m calling the cops.”

“Fine.”

Self absorption and self loathing were two things she always exceled at. She told my sisters and I that my father didn’t want to see us after the divorce, that he didn’t want anything to do with us. How could she be so cold? But I knew better than to believe her. So, I called my father. I called him again and again. But for a whole year, he didn’t pick up. I thought to myself, “it must be because I called from the house phone, he must have thought it was going to be mom calling.”

Even though I made excuses for him, I still wondered… why couldn’t he have taken the risk, just once, for us? The more I called, the angrier I became. Maybe she was telling the truth. Then, on April 1st my mother and her crude boyfriend Jackson, asked my sisters and I to have a formal sit-down dinner because they needed to tell us something.

“We are having a baby!” My mother exclaimed.

My sisters and I sat in silence, our lives flashing before our eyes.

“NO!” screamed Angie. “You can’t!” as she sprints down the stairs to her room in a fit.

My mother wasn’t even fit to raise us, and now they were going to be bringing another baby into this world? No way.

“I’m moving in with Dad!” I screamed, and my mother began to laugh.

“Oh yea? He doesn’t even answer your calls, how are you going to move in with him?”

“I don’t care, I am going to his house! I can’t and I won’t be here anymore.”

“Relax Mary it was just an April fool’s day joke.”

“I don’t care, I’m done.” So, I packed some clothes and started walking to my dad’s house. When I finally arrived at our old family home, it looked different. The shrubs were overgrown, the gardens were festering with weeds, and I had never seen so much mildew on that deck. I took it all in as I walked up the walkway to the front door. I hadn’t been here in so long, I wondered if my dad was even home. So I peered through the frosted oval window nested in the door and there he was. He looked different too. Tired and worn out. He saw me and opened his door. His eyes were droopy, his face flush, and hair a mess. I held his torso in a bear hug with all my might.

“Can I live with you dad, I can’t take it at moms anymore please don’t make me go back.”

“Of course, monkey. I’ve missed you”

Things got better for a while after that, but she still haunted me. So, after I finished high school, I moved out of town. According to my sisters’ things are still hard at home. Although a part of me feels guilty for leaving them behind, I couldn’t have taken them if I tried. I also know it wasn’t my fault. There was only so much I could really do, and I needed to look out for my mental health too.

PS: she is much more stable now and we have been working to heal our relationship.