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.