tethered.

she must have a spiritual connection with me... a cosmic string tethered between my heart and hers. i received a letter from her today. after worrying that something was wrong, this shows up in the mail:

"dear xxxxxx:
i developed this address for you as above online. besides that, nosy databases state that you are friends with "XXXXXXX", a neighbor. Well, good for you!

yes, i know several years ago you stated that you didn't want future contact with your mom: me. i just find that hard to accept because i loved you so.

one last try to put things right between us. i'd like to see you and talk things over. i'm free in august and could travel down by bus. i'd like to ask whether you'd consider letting me stay over for one night at least. i'm a rather poor person without assets. still, i've prospered enough to pay for a round trip bus fare. no, i do not have plans to move south. i could never afford to without help on a regular basis.

as for the rest, i'm really quite healthy these days, xxxxxxx. healthy and normal. i've been working for the past five years. i have a credible life. please share it with me. i am now 63. perhaps you might recall that i was your wet nurse. and that i loved you very much.

i broke ties with the past and began a new life under a new name. it's been rather good for me. i am very alone and sad about it. i care about you. i am also curious about what you have done in the past eight years. so, please write back and give me permission to visit you in august. it might be august 7th until the 9th.

all my best,
xxxxxxxxxxx."

letters from her like this make me uneasy. there's a reason i didn't open them when they would arrive. nothing good comes of me reading them. at best, they make me more angry. at worst, they make me feel like shit.

either way, i file them away for another time... maybe for another life. my mother, as i knew and loved her, is dead and gone. this woman - she is not my mother. she is a stranger, trapped in a psychotic world of hallucinated realities, and while her words might seem otherwise, i know it is all a front. she is not medicated. she is not well. and i am not ready to let her into my life.

maybe that makes me an asshole. or selfish. i like to think of it as the purest form of self-preservation.

mirror mirror

my second niece has arrived in the world. it's a funny thing, this growing up. watching my brother welcome his second child. seeing so much of him in his daughter. wondering what it was like when i was the toddler meeting the newborn sibling for the first time, instead of my oldest niece staring at her new sister in the swing... this cyclical pattern of lives over generations. 

i watched the child cradled in her maternal grandmother's arms and instantly thought about my own mother. she is missing all of this. these beautiful sweet girls do not know the touch of their father's mother. i am watching them grow, cherishing them as if they were my own, and secretly weeping that my mother is not here.

she will not be here for these moments in my life.

i have not heard a peep out of her in months. since december. is she alive? is she under a roof? is she fed? will i ever have the strength to truly seek the answers?

i stood on my patio for a while tonight, and looked into the sunset. i can't help but wonder if there is someone out there for me - someone who wants to build a life and a family together. i look at my nieces and long for little dirty blonde children with green eyes... i want to name them something beautiful and powerful, and teach them what it is to have a life filled with love. i want to give them the kind of mother i never had. 

i'm ready for my own life to start. i let my hair go wild after a shower tonight, and caught myself in a mirror. for just a moment - a split second - i looked so much like my mother, it hurt. it felt like she was right there staring back at me. 

even in my most hopeful moments, her shadow is right there. her reflection is looking back at me, and taunts me with the reminder that she is not here. she is not here, and i am motherless all over again.