Take Me Away

Take Me Away

Merry Christmas (a little belated) everyone!

I had mixed feelings this Christmas. This was my first married Christmas and although funds didn’t allow us to really lavish each other with beautiful gifts or any kind of extravagance, we did manage to squeeze out just enough for a little tree, which I love and have taken pictures of to be posted later. I thought that this year, due to the lack of funds, I’d be so sad or all down in the mouth. But I woke up Christmas day and I dunno if it was the fact that I didn’t HAVE to go to work or didn’t have to be anywhere in particular – or if it was the fact that neither did my hubby, so we get to spend yet another day and night in quiet marital bliss… or if it was that he cooked breakfast for me… or if it was that the cable company came on Christmas morning to fix our internet that had been out for 3 days… Whatever it was, I felt energized… excited everytime I looked at our simple little tree; peaceful knowing that this was the first of many married Christmases. JUST AS EXCITED as if there were a thousand gifts under the tree to wake up and BE! I was like… a little kid on Christmas morn. I had all that I needed: the love of my hubby; the warmth piping through the radiators; good food; good tv and quiet solace. IT WAS PERFECT.

I should have stayed there.

Around 11 AM, my mommy calls me. At first I get excited because I called her at midnight to wish her a Merry Christmas – I knew she was feeling down being her first Christmas w/o daddy and all. So I wanted to try to instill that feeling. That Christmas emotion. To no avail of course – so I was hoping the 11 AM call was her giving into the Christmas excitement. Quite the opposite though. Her brother / my uncle, who now lives in Huntington, was having Christmas dinner and REFUSED to take no as an answer from her and was coming to literally drag her out to his house to be amongst the living. She was calling me looking for a sympathizer. She’d find none in our household. In fact, I told her I’d meet her out there and have dinner with them. She hated me for my response and basically hung up. Not before letting me know that she had no intention of staying for dinner on account of the constant nausea she’s been feeling – so I better get there and get there fast. (Lemme not delve too far into the fact that my brother managed to weasel his way out of going because he was sick *wink wink nudge nudge*. By the way… he’s ALWAYS effin sick. *rolls eyes*)

Okay – so instead of seeing my MIL first (mother-in-law for the ones that don’t know and for the sickos who were like “she forgot the F”)… my hubby and I agreed to go straight out to Huntington for 5 (which is when we were told the food would be served. After an hour out from Brooklyn, we arrived at 5:16. Got to the door where we could see into the living room – and there sat my mother. In a chair separate from everyone. Arms crossed over her stomach. Staring off into the distance while conversations went on around her. It was VERY The Color Purple when Sophia came back from the jail cell. I thought to myself – it’ll change as soon as i get there. Wishful thinking. It did not. She was just as cold and unresponsive to me. Oh yeah… because I didn’t come to her rescue and tell my uncle what an ogre he was for taking her away from her everyday. I tried hard to get her to open up and talk to me… And if she was a pinhole when I got there she MAY have been about as open as the eye of a needle by the end of a night. Which really isn’t progress. She was truly miserable.

Then to add insult to injury, my aunt & uncle didn’t serve food till 8:10PM. Let’s count together, kids – mom had been there since 2. I got there at 5. So she had to wait 6 hours. And I had to wait 3. She was just about livid. And I was pretty peeved that the timing was SO off. And on account of that, we’d not be able to get to see my MIL. So, trying to grasp a little joy, upon finally being seated at the dinner table, the grace began to be said. My uncle requested the Lord’s Prayer in French – which for whatever reason NEVER got ingrained into my head. So I mouthed the English version. Just as we got to the end… and were about to sit… My aunt chimes in… with the prayer of the miserable. Let’s remind ourselves of everyone that died and made us sad this year. Top of the list? Dad. GREAT. So much for offering a healthy distraction to my mom. Back to the pinhole. She clammed up for the rest of the night and would only really respond to her brother. Didn’t speak a word the the whole hour long ride home. Just wallowed in misery, right in the back of my very happy car.

All I could really wish for, was to find a way to get away. I know it’s unChristian. I know it’s unFamilylike. I know it’s damn near inhuman. I just want to get away from miserable people. I don’t understand what they don’t get about the one thing that IS constant in this world. WE ALL LEAVE. Eventually. No one stays. I could understand how we’d find it unfair if there were some folks that lived forever and the rest of us don’t. But the bottom line is that we all die. Every single one of us. So… wouldn’t that knowledge make us cherish all the moments we have even more? I don’t want to be surrounded by misery. ESPECIALLY from my family. But they seem to be the ones who want to bring it to me most. Even my dad’s spirit in my dreams comes to irritate me. Never to bring any good or grand news. Just to make me mad. My brother and his shiftlessness has just about reached a boiling point for me and I can’t STAND to want more for him than he wants for himself. And then there’s my mom. My 66 year old mother who is more like 87. I know 70 year olds in my chapter with more vitality and life and health and excitement about the moments than she’s EVER had. And what stings more is that everyone’s answer to me about instilling life into her is for me to have a kid. You know what.

NO.

What about me and my brother? Is that no longer reason enough to want to live and enjoy life and be excited about what few moments you have? I have to bring a whole other life into the world for her to be happy about the life she already had?? It seems preposterous to me. And an insult. Because when I sit there and wallow in my self pity for the 15 minutes that I do from time to time and consider bringing my years to an end way earlier than I should – the FIRST REASON THAT SNAPS ME BACK IS MY MOM. I just imagine how painful that’d be for her – to lose me before she went. Shit – the last time I went to see her, she snapped on me about these scars that were really prevalent on my face and I have attacked them Ambi products out the wazoo (which really works by the way) JUST SO SHE COULD BE HAPPIER TO SEE ME. But she’s not. And she won’t be and I’m not reason enough to try. But she’s reason enough for me.

I just wish I could hide from the misery in my little apartment with my husband and be happy for weeks at a time. Months even… Maybe years. I think I deserve uninterrupted happiness… Even if it’s just for a little while.

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