My Story

My mother was a force to be reckoned with. All my growing up years were spent quietly watching and wondering about life. I spent a lot of years reading books and enjoyed going to school.  It’s only in my later years that I recognized things for what they truly are.  Things Mom did for the family was also all about her, and her need to control things.  Growing up, I didn't consider her own growing up years. But lately, I have come to the conclusion that there was some childhood trauma she never dealt with.  Which was probably the cause of her inability to express or deal with emotions in a healthy manner, and why she has to be in control.

Looking back, I can see how she controlled family and things around her. Her compulsion to keep things clean enough for the Queen to visit. How her home and by extension her children were to look to neighbors and friends.  There was an emphasis on impressing people. While I was living it, I couldn't put it in any context, it was how I assumed everyone lived. But what did I know, I was a kid.  There were always projects going on; her way of getting things done was to say “I think it would be nice if ….” And expecting people around her to read her mind, to know that she wasn’t sharing a thought, she was dictating an order.  Again, I thought it was normal, I was just a kid.  I can see it now through adult eyes because just recently she told me “That closet door stays closed if you lift on the handle.” What she was really telling me was “get up and close that closet door” but I no longer respond to those.  If she asks “will you close the closet door?” I will.

She liked sewing clothes, and sewed for all of us. But she also decided what we would wear going out. For a long time, back in my 20s and 30s, I thought it was amusing that she sewed and dressed us all to match.  There’s a photo taken of our family, we are all wearing the ugliest brown plaid, dad in a shirt, mom and us girls in dresses.  The Golden Gate Bridge is in the background.  Despite the ugly clothing, it’s a fav photo (its because of the bridge!) Matching dresses for Mother’s Day. Red, White and Blue striped tops. She wanted us all to look cute.  We dressed up on Sundays, to visit relatives, and whatever excuse she had.  I was in 7th grade before I was allowed to wear pants to school, and that was only on Fridays!  As I look back, it sits differently now. 

I never minded pitching in and doing chores. And that served me well in my own adult life. But as the eldest, I had the most chores. I can't remember what my siblings' chores were while I was out mowing the yard when I was 10.  Saturday mornings were spent doing chores. Sunday mornings were spent at church. Sunday afternoons were spent in our rooms reading or doing something equally as quiet.  After dinner, if our homework was done, we were allowed to play with neighbor kids until the streetlights came on. It was the 70s, and we all felt pretty safe.  This was how life went, until I hit my teens. 

........ And that's how my story starts. It's a work in progress, I hope I can continue it!