Into the Ugly

It's hard to love who are if you hate who you've been. 

It's hard to dream of what you might still become when you cannot embrace yourself in the now. But it is absolutely necessary to learn to love yourself and remember how to dream - it's either that, or wither away in regret.

We were the poor kids - and that's fine. It's not a self-pity thing. There were (and are, and always will be) poor kids. And part of the reason it was as hard as it was is because my mother would not accept government assistance, so no Medicaid, no WIC, no SNAP benefits (which was called food stamps at the time). I remember being really small in the back seat of a really big car watching my mother blow a gasket because a woman was leaning toward the window of the driver's side, pushing an envelope toward her. The church took up a special offering to help her. To help us. But instead of being grateful, she was angry and embarrassed that people were looking down on us. It didn't help that she was bipolar.

Grandma wasn't always prim, proper, and the outer image of a faithful Christian. No, she used to be a wild child running the bars, enjoying her men, thriving in the sensuality of her youth, smoking her cigarettes. Then one day she woke up with the fear of God in her and buckled down her image. It didn't help that she had anxiety disorder and other unique ways of thinking, and that she projected her own expectations as everyone else's potential and could be cruel in trying to help them achieve it. What I mean by that is that she would not hesitate to tell you that you were fat if you didn't fit within the realm of what she considered attractively thin. She would donate to homeless shelters and then tell everyone who would listen how wonderful she was because she donated. She'd read the newspaper to make herself cry, then pray for those she read about to make herself feel better, all while casting her own family aside for fear of embarrassment. 

And this isn't a trash your grandma session, either. There's a purpose here. I adored my grandmother. There were a million things about her to love, and a lot of her personality that I absorbed. But that doesn't mean she was perfect. She was flawed, and she knew it, and we talked about it intimately in her dying days. She once told her friend that my mother was babysitting my little brother for a neighbor because she was ashamed that my mother had a child out of wedlock. The point is - unrealistic expectation of perfection. To be in grandma's presence was to be in the presence of harsh critic, judge, and jury. We had to be perfect or rejected, there was no middle ground.

Meanwhile, I was a child of the 80s, so our parents weren't expected to give a shit. Well, my father wasn't even there to give a shit, and my mom did the best she knew how with what she had. We'd get locked outside at eight in the morning and told not to come back until the street lights came on. If we got thirsty, we had to drink from the hose in the yard. Beepers and cell phones hadn't been invented yet (yes, I did say beepers), so there was no way for them to call and check on us or track us, which was fine, because they were too into their own existences to care what we were doing anyway. Out of sight, out of mind. At night, a commercial would air on the television: "It's ten p.m., do you know where your children are?"

They didn't.

My mom wasn't a bad mother in the sense that she didn't care, she just didn't know how - and she clearly wasn't living up to her mother's standards (and was still emotionally traumatized by her father's suicide when she was five).

I was the nerdy kid in school, which, being poor didn't help. I was made fun of. An outsider. A freak. A loser. I would spend recess and lunch breaks walking along the fence around the field, writing and singing songs to keep myself company. I imagined I was from a different realm, which is why I didn't fit in. I was magic. I was the ambassador to the faerie realm. I could see and hear things that others couldn't. I could feel things others couldn't. At least I thought I did. I didn't belong. Out of place.

Again - not a sob story. We're doing shadow work here. There's a point.

I was held to impossible expectations by my grandmother, completely ignored by my mother, and made fun of at school. Dejected. Unloved. Unworthy. There was also physical and sexual abuse that taught me zero respect for my body.

I looked for that love in boys, because that's what Grandma and Mom did. Grandpa was Grandma's sixth husband, and Mom was married four times. I followed those footsteps faithfully, which led me to become pregnant at 15. And at 19. And at 21. And to lend to a reputation I didn't know I was earning, my children did not share a father. I got married one more time than my mother did, and one less than my grandmother. I was also a bartender, smoking my cigarettes (and weed, but I'm not knocking it from my position in the garden), appreciating that I was attractively thin and could get the boys' attention.

When my kids were small and I was still poor (but even more poor than my mother and due to my own lack of ability to provide), I couldn't afford a home or even an apartment. I rented a small, dilapidated trailer in an old trailer park in a bad part of town.

Know what my co-workers at the bar called me?

Trailer trash.

And it didn't help that I had an anxiety disorder and bipolar disorder, among other things.

So then I overcorrected, right? I hit my fifties after my final divorce, when my kids were grown, and got a job in Corporate America. I worked my way up that ladder, earning my raises and learning how to support myself. I wanted to get my nails done, and my hair done, and wear nice clothes, so I could look well-to-do and accomplished, and anything but poor, rejected trailer trash. I became arrogant and thought myself above others, just because I didn't have to borrow money to pay my bills, had good food in the fridge, and had a steady stream of Amazon packages arriving at my door.

I could go on, but there's no need. Here's my point. I cannot undo the expectations to which my grandmother held me, or the sting of her rejection. I cannot undo the abuse and neglect of growing up in the 80s. I cannot remove the label of trailer trash, and I cannot forget the disdainful looks of people as they looked down their noses at me. But I can control what is right here, right now.

Since the day I started this blog, I've been exploring my dark night of the soul, my shadow side, and facing the parts of me that are hard to look at. And as "cheesy psychology" as it sounds, I have to forgive the past versions of me. I have to travel back to my childhood and hug that little girl, tell her she's enough, and give her the positive attention she deserves. I have to tell her that we made it and it's okay and that she did the best she could with what she had. 

I'm not trailer trash - nor do I have to try to overcompensate by trying to project that I'm better than. In fact, I don't need external validation at all - but trying to live without it is like trying to detox from a harsh drug.

So if I'm not a wounded kid and I'm not hiding behind a false persona, who am I? Who am I when I'm not daughter, mother, sister, (ex) wife, employee? Who am I when I'm not looking into the ugly?

Who am I becoming now?

The goal is to become a woman who is so secure within herself and her aloneness that she doesn't give a single flying fuck what anyone else thinks of her. Someone stable enough to provide for herself comfortably without feeling a need to flaunt her finances for approval or admiration. Someone so in love with herself and her life that every day feels like a celebration of creativity and wonder. Laughter. Yes, I want to reconnect with that realm of my childhood where I sing with the faeries and dance with the dragons.

And so I look at my past, and I respect my grandmother for the journey she walked. I know what it looked like from my perspective (and who am I to judge?), but she had her own battles to fight, as did my mother. They are both human, just like me. And I became guilty of the same exact mistakes they made. My kids were the poor kids who got made fun of while I neglected them to go to work 12-hour days. Not because I wanted to be neglectful, not because I didn't care, but because I was doing the best I knew how with what I had.

I have to respect myself for the journey I walked. Thank myself for not giving up. Forgive myself for not knowing better. Love myself for who I am on the inside, not who circumstances shaped me to be.

I have to believe in magic.

I was born that way.