I’ve hurt myself by hating you…

The other evening, I sat down and responded to one of many emails that have been exchanged between my mother and I throughout the course of the last week. My response was written in a much less than amiable nature. In it, I proceeded to express the deep-rooted and long unexplained hatred I’ve harboured for the woman who brought me into this world, how I hated her for having me - someone who has so so many things wrong with her and doesn’t even know what any of them are, and has done nothing to make anyone proud, and has no hope in sight of ever being fixed, how I hated her for having someone who isn’t and has never been happy and doesn’t even know how to go about trying, and how I hated her for having someone who’s such a defective piece of trash.

I’ve given myself years to find this out about myself, because for the longest time, there truly was (and admittedly, still is) a deep hatred I’ve always had for my mother. It wasn’t until I sat back and compared her life to mine, how successful she’s been as opposed to how much I’ve succeeded at being a complete failure at everything, that I realized that I hated her for still loving me regardless of me being unworthy of the love of such an amazing woman, one that I should have prayed to be anything like, but once again, failed miserably.

My mother met my father while he was working at a department store. She went in looking to buy a birthday present for her boyfriend at the time, and it apparently was instantaneous. She was seven months pregnant with me when they married. They lived in Puerto Rico for 3 months, until they decided to move to Florida. My mother’s first job here was as a cashier at a Winn-Dixie. With somewhat of an accounting education, she managed to land a job in the payroll department of the local newspaper, The Palm Beach Post. She then went on to eventually become the assistant manager of the top car wash location in the county, Top Hat Car Wash. (Top Hat was THE place to get your car washed and detailed. All the celebrities who lived out on the island went there, from what she told me.) From there, my mother held a job as a title loan contractor (back when they were legal) as well as worked in the medical records departments of two doctor’s offices. She had my little sister in 1995, and shortly thereafter, my mother fell ill, being diagnosed with myocardiopathy. One night, after a shopping trip to the now-defunct Service Merchandise, she handed my baby sister off to me, opened the door to our apartment, and collapsed at the threshold. I later came to find out that in the few minutes that she was unconscious, she’d actually died. Yes. I’ve seen my mother dead, and didn’t know it at the time. She’d passed out one other time prior to this occurance, and apparently was told by the doctor that were it to happen once more, it would have been in her sleep and she would not have made it. In order to ensure that, she had a pacemaker put in. A few years later, she had my little brother. She put up with my father being let go from his job of 14 years at the Palm Beach Post, for reasons I shall not disclose. She decided to still be there for me when I finally came clean about my being pregnant, when my father wanted to kick me out. They eventually sat my brother, sister and I down and told us they were getting divorced. I later came to find out that it was because of me, because of my unplanned pregnancy. She never left my side at the hospital the entire time I was there. She immediately loved the little girl who was brought into the world at 12:59pm on Thursday December 30th, 2004. She kept a close eye on me, suspecting I’d slip into a deep post-partum depression, considering I’d hid the pregnancy for so long. She made sure Naty and I were well taken care of.

I came home from a long Tower shift one night, and she was sat up waiting for me. She told me Naty called her mama. I cried. I was torn between continuing to chase my dream at Disney, or giving it up for what was supposed to be the most important thing in my life. I slapped her in the face by abandoning all of them the next day, by disappearing for a week.

I dropped out of school because work was more important to me. She only wanted me to finish and make something out of myself, something more than yet another brain washed cast member. I failed her.

She wanted me to be a good mother to Naty and a role model for her and my sister. I failed her.

I’ve done absolutely nothing in my life to garner any sort of praise from her, and I fear that I never will, that I’m doomed to be worthless forever.

…and yet, I still hate her for somehow still believing that there is a shred of good in me hidden somewhere.