Today is my mother’s birthday.

To my knowledge, she’s still alive. This is the first year I’m deliberately not calling her though.

I just can’t.

I know it’ll turn into another go-round on the emotional abuse-mobile, and I don’t have it in me to do that. The things she said and did after the election still scream so loudly to me. It made it quite clear that she’d never really accepted who I am, so, no, thanks. Not calling.

You see, it’s always about how much I’ve hurt HER. How much pain SHE’S in.

Fine, I’m actually an excellent listener, I’m more than willing to listen to someone else’s pain and problems. That’s what friends/family do, until they realize that all they are to the person is a toilet, a dumping ground for this other person’s negative emotions (with my mother, that’s a never ending supply.)

It’s always been that way too.

Even as a kid it was me cleaning up the mess (sometimes literally when she’d drunk so much she was puking).

It was me teaching my sister about menstruation, cause mom was gone.

I took my sister to planned parenthood the first time when I knew she was gonna have sex with her boyfriend. Mom wasn’t around.

I’ve forgiven my mother far, far more than anyone in their right mind ever should have. Because… she’s my mom. This last time, I thought… maybe, since she’s largely stopped drinking, maybe I can actually have a mom now?

Sucks to admit that.

It makes me tear up too, and I HATE that.

But is it so wrong to want a mother? Someone who puts their kids needs first (for the most part) like I do with my own kids?

When my former best friend tried to kill herself, I called my mom, in tears, just needing her to listen. I was losing my home at the time too, and I just needed her to listen. It took her three minutes to interrupt and start venting about her problems and how much it hurt her to hear me talk about suicide. Three minutes. I timed it.

I guess… since I’m alive there must have been a time when mom did put my needs first. But I was 8 or 9 when she started drinking heavily, and I honestly don’t remember that time.

I don’t have a lot of good memories of my mother. I envy people who do. I envy people who WANT to call their mom on her birthday and wish her a good one. I wonder what it must be like, to know deep in your bones that your mother both accepts and loves you more than she loves a book of made up lies written by misogynistic men (the bible, in case you’re wondering). Or more than she loves her booze. I don’t know what that feels like, and I don’t suppose I ever will.

I have a case of guilt, in regards to so many people who would give ANYTHING for another moment with their mom. Cause I don’t want one with mine. Not my real mom. Yeah, if she ever bothered to do the work needed to stop being a gas-lighting, emotional abuser… maybe I’d consider it. But she won’t. She hasn’t yet… why would she now?

The mom of my wishing imagination? Yeah, I’d like to take that one to lunch, talk over all sorts of things and get a warm, accepting hug from. But that person only exists in my imagination.

To my imaginary mom, happy birthday.