The Bootlegging Story Has Really Nothing to Do With Anything...

My Grandfather was arrested for bootlegging once. I'm two generations away from bona fide hillbillies. But apparently people find my family snobby. On my Mom's side anyways. I can't argue it. We are. It seems for no good reason at all.

So my cousin came in from out of town last weekend and stayed with me last night. We had a long talk. She's been hanging onto something for a long time and it seemed that I needed to give her some sort of absolution. I think when I tried at age 14 or so it wasn't quite good enough. I needed to have the conversation with her as an adult.

Abuse: bad or improper treatment; maltreatment: The child was subjected to cruel abuse.

It seems that some members of my family were concerned that I was being abused. Not sexually - just the usual old-fashioned kind as in the definition above. Not by my Dad of course. I am completely biased about him, but the general consensus of all who have ever known him is that he is a good, kind man.

The thing is, I think he is the one who may have been abused. By my mother. The one who's been dead for almost 22 years now. It physically hurts me to actually be writing something so awful about the woman who gave birth to me, but it seems like there was a genuine concern in my family when I was young that I never knew much about.

My cousin and her mother called Child and Family Services when I was 9 or 10. My cousin had lived with us when I was 9 and saw a lot. She was 18.

Since my mother dies when I was 11, all my memories of her are coloured with the thoughts, perceptions and feelings of a child. And I sometimes wonder whether everyone's childhood memories are as hazy as mine. My memories of my mother are at such extreme ends of the spectrum that it would be almost comical if it wasn't so sad.

But listening to my cousin last night was shocking, yet it reminded me so much of things that I had long forgotten. She compared me to a china doll back then. How I always had to behave perfectly and how my favourite restaurant as a child was some place much fancier than a child of my age should have been ever thinking about. In some ways I think I was a little doll for my Mom to dress up in fancy clothes and but jewellery for and take out to nice places.

But I can't quite reconcile that to abuse. I think my Mother was a very unhappy woman. I think she was also quite ill herself. Both in the traditional sense with heart and blood pressure problems, and in the mental health sense.

My cousin reminded me of how she came home one day to find me crying in my room because my Mother had dumped everything from all my drawers and the top of my dressers onto the floor and left me a note saying that I had to have my room cleaned by the time she got home. I don't remember the incident precisely, but hearing about it doesn't surprise me.

Is this abuse? I don't know.

Is it normal for a child to be afraid of their Mother? Is it normal that when my Mom was in the hospital for the brief time before she died that I was devastated when she said that she was taking 6 months off work for her health because I didn't want her around so much. Is it normal that I was a little relived when she died? Is it normal that while I still miss her every day, I wonder if I didn't turn out just a little bit better because I only had her moods and temper around for 11 years instead of my whole life?

I can't make myself believe that I was abused. But the rational part of me reminds me that even abuse must occur on a sliding scale. Perhaps I was in the low - mid range. There was a lot of good, but the bad was worse than non-abused kids would have to experience. I don't know.

I can't see how at age 33, suddenly deciding that I was an abused child could possibly do me any good. What would that do to my poor Father?

I know that the reason I'm not married and most likely never will be is because I'm scared that I will treat my partner like my Mother treated my Father. I know that the reason I pause before I say anything to anyone, ever, is to gauge their mood to make sure they're not going to snap at me or get angry at me for disturbing them. (Yes, EVERYone, EVERytime. That includes my person, My Dear Anon, Ali, everyone...) I know that the reason that I don't want children is because I'm scared that I'll be mean to them,

But abuse? Well, I think there's something to be said for denial. I just can't go there.
While a part of me felt validated by what my cousin was saying to me (cause how much guilt do you think I'm carrying, when there's a tiny buried part of me that just admitted that my Mom dying might have been beneficial?) but for the most part, I don't know that it wouldn't be better for me to forget the whole conversation. She's gone. Don't speak ill of the dead. If I have issues, I'll just go to therapy and then quit when I have to talk about the past too much.

I feel like I've lived my life backwards. I started out as a grown up and I'm becoming more and more child-like the older I get. I'm trying to make up for lost time?

Introspection sucks.