I may be a bitch, but never a witch

I thought this was an appropriate post for the week before Halloween. When I was about 6, my grandmother decided to try her hand at making my Halloween costume. She went through a "crafty" phase after retirement. She learned to crochet, knit, leather work, fake flower arrangements, etc. My grandfather spoiled her, so she had all the big, fancy and expensive sewing machines. 

Anyway, she got this idea to make me a witch costume for Halloween. I don't even remember if it was originally her idea or mine for me to be a witch. So this witch costume, was made out of some type of shiny vinyl. It had reflector tape all around the bottom of the witch skirt. It had cutesy pumpkin stickers all over it, including the hat. It had reflective, swirly embellishments all over it. You could spot me from 3 miles away! This was not a witch costume that I wanted to wear. Witches are supposed to be scary, or at least normal looking. This costume was hideous!!! What can a 6 year old really say? No grandma, your hard work and efforts to make this costume for me were a waste of time because I'm and ungrateful child. So I wore the damn thing. 

The next Halloween rolls around. I talk about what I want to be for Halloween. Guess what? The witch costume still fits. Yep, you guessed it. I was a witch, again! Oh, the embarrassment at school. I was a grown woman of 7 at that point. I was in not only a nauseatingly "cute" witch costume, it was obviously homemade and from last year! My parents refused to buy me something different, so what's the alternative? No costume at all? 

My Halloween of 8, and the costume still fits. Will this thing not go away?!? At this point I was ripping off the cutesy stickers and reflective tape, hoping to "ruin" the costume so that I didn't have to wear it. No such luck. I was a witch, with no reflective tape, and only a few pumpkin stickers. My fate as an outcast at school was already sealed. This is why I will never, ever dress as a witch for Halloween. 

There were several years where I didn't have a costume at school because my parents were too cheap to buy me one. I usually ended up with whatever was cheapest, and left on Halloween Day at Kmart. Unless some neighbor or friend offered to take me trick or treating with their kids, my parents thought my joy should have been handing out candy. 

Yep, Halloween was one of the many holidays that my parents ruined for me. This is why I go all out for my kids on Halloween. I let them pick whatever they want. We decorate the house, and the yard. We have a full on graveyard in the front yard every year. They love it and are proud to show off their cool Halloween house every year to their friends. I have never offered to make a costume for the kids, even if I was broke. I made it happen for them, one way or the other. This year my daughter actually ASKED me to make her costume. I tried to talk her out of it, lol. She fell in love with these sequined horns and tail, so I agreed to make the costume around it. She was so excited that she was able to help make the tutu. 

Here it is. Not too bad if I do say so myself. I hope my kids grow up with awesome Halloween memories and never write a blog on how their mom ripped them off of good memories.

Shall we start at the beginning?

The farthest back in my memory I can remember is of me at my maternal grandmother's house. It was strange for me there. There were no kids to play with. I was there every day except when I "visited" my house, and that was rare. My mother was someone I saw in passing. I never really thought of her as a permanent fixture in my life. She was always working. My dad came by every few days to talk to my grandparents, really. Not to see me. I guess I always assumed he was working too. 

That was my childhood. My dad never worked a steady job. He was always "between jobs". My mom was a private duty nurse and worked 12 hours a day, 7 days a week. I grew up thinking that it was normal to be at grandma's house more than at home. I never really questioned why I rarely saw my mom. It just was. As an adult, I realized that his lack of steady employment was part of the reason why she worked so much. 

The older I got, the more I realized that other kids spent their time at home with their parents. That your mom was supposed to be someone who was with you...a LOT. Mom was someone who tucked you in and read you stories and made your food. People sat around the dinner table, together. This was all strange to me. We didn't do that at my grandma's house. I ate at a tray in front of the TV because she was "too busy" to sit down to a meal at the table. This was my life until I was old enough to go to school. 

Even then, when I wasn't in school, I was at a babysitter's house after school. At my grandma's house on weekends and school vacations. My mom and I didn't spend a whole lot of time together other than the ride to school. I took the bus to the sitter's. We had the ride home. We ate a late dinner at 8:30 at the dinner table. There was no talking because the TV was blaring. We would get shooshed by my dad if we talked. TV is important! 

It wasn't until I was about 12 that my mom finally got weekends off. I looked forward to it! I thought, finally, I can spend time with my mom. We can do all those things that sit-com moms do with their daughters. We can go shopping or paint nails. Do art projects, or just talk. To my disappointment, nothing changed. I still spent weekends and vacations at my grandma's house. I realized that she just did not want to be with me. She spent evenings with my dad. Spent her weekends sleeping, on trips with my dad, with her pets. Anything, BUT with me. I think that was really the hardest realization that my mom just didn't have any room in her life for me. She had the time now, but it was apparent that I wasn't a priority. 

By the time I got to high school, I had grown accustomed to just minding my own business. I had buried myself in books, school and TV up until that point. We lived about an hour from where I was going to school, and I was never allowed to visit with my schoolmates, so I had no real friendships outside of school. 

High school was a different world entirely. It was in walking distance from my house. There were kids who lived somewhat close to me. There were events I could participate in. I felt alive, finally! And when I started doing things and making my voice heard, my parents had no idea who I was. They didn't know me! They somehow expected me to be some silent figure that lived in some room down the hall. I wasn't a quiet, non-existent person, they shut me up. They made me disappear all those years. 

When my mom finally realized that I was nothing like her and didn't share her views on things, she rejected me. At one point, she told me that she wished she had had another kid to make up for where she went wrong with me. The irony is that I wasn't even a bad kid. I got good grades. I didn't get into trouble. At worst, I experimented with pot, but that's about it for the most part. I just wanted to be left alone, just like my parents always had done. But at this point, I'm not sure if they were bored, but they wanted to micro-manage me. They rarely let me go out with friends to anything that was not a school required activity. I was a good kid. There was no real reason to say no, so I decided I would just go, and face the punishment later. 

To this day, they will tell you what a rotten teenager I was. I was in the school marching band for Pete's sake! I graduated with a 3.8 GPA. I was a good kid. Too bad they never really cared enough to know that about me. I guess my lack of a connection with them made me gravitate toward people that didn't always have my best interests at heart. When you're seeking love and approval, and you can't get it from home, you'll take it where you get it. Wherever that is.

Things that need to be said

I am going through a strange period in my life right now. Things have been amazing. I had my baby boy earlier this year. I got engaged. I'm planning a wedding and a life together with someone. I feel like my world is full and complete. 

The funky part of this is that my parents decided to get all flippy on me last year. They decided that they should tell me how to parent my 2 older children, and if I didn't do what they wanted, they would do it behind my back. They have taught my children to lie to me, to be manipulative, and disrespect myself and my fiance. To me, this is unacceptable. My oldest son is 15 and we are still trying to undo the damage their deceit has caused. My daughter is almost 8, and she has a good head on her shoulders. She understands what they did was wrong, but she still misses being able to visit with them. She understands that our distance is for the best. 

So my wedding is in 6 months and I don't plan on inviting them. They received the "save the date" before we had our last falling out. We stopped communication shortly thereafter. I should say, they stopped communications. I called them on their manipulation and the fact that they aim their resentment at my fiance, even though this has nothing to do with him. I said we should get together to discuss this. I haven't heard from them since. They didn't even acknowledge my birthday with  a card, email, text, smoke signal... lol.

It's OK, my life feels full anyway. And this is the strange part for me. I am OK with this. I don't feel any sense of loss. They haven't been in my adult life a whole lot anyway. They have caused me a lot of hurt in my life, and I am in the process of letting it go. At times, when I talk about what they have done, how they judge MY parenting, when they have yet to reexamine their own parenting, I just get so frustrated. They have a revisionist view of history, and that's OK. I know what's real and true. My fiance says I need to let it go, and he's right. 

I haven't asked my dad to give me away at the wedding. It doesn't feel right. I'm not his to give. I have asked my oldest friend to do it. We have known each other for 19 years! I know that he is happy for us, and wishes us well. I know that I won't have to walk on eggshells to avoid some sort of mind-fuck from my parents, if I had asked my dad. Not that he deserves that honor anyway. I would like the person who gives me away, to actually be HAPPY for me. 

So I will be blogging for a while to work this through. I want to make sure I am OK with this decision. It's not just a temporary thing, this whole, writing them off. This has gone on far too long. The mind-fuck of my parents is now extending down to my kids, and I don't like how it makes them feel like they did something to deserve this. My parents are fucked up and it's not their fault. 

I plan on writing about my childhood, and my adolescent years. My main focus in my writing will be about them for a while. I used to think that my growing-up years weren't so bad, but when I retell a few incidents, and then there a few more, and a few more, I realize that I begin to paint a picture of some pretty messed up years. I guess I had a twisted childhood and buried it. I denied it and in my mind tried to just make it seem normal. I tricked myself into thinking it was normal.

This is like unraveling a crotchet blanket. You have to go back through everything that was done, to be able to start back at the beginning and build a better foundation. You have to understand what went wrong to be able to fix it. I will never understand why my parents are the way they are, but I can forgive myself for the ways I acted out in response to that. 

I have thought about what if they read this some day? It's ok. Maybe they should. Whether we are ever able to rebuild a relationship based on mutual respect, that's entirely up to them. Whether they do or don't, they should know all the ways they hurt me. In their minds, at this moment, they are flawless. I know this, because this is how they feel that it's OK to judge me. Maybe it's time for a reality check for us all.