Yesterday, I called my mother. I had to do it. My fear of calling her wasn't driving me half as mad as all this mother-related anxiety. It's the dreams. I had a dream about her funeral, and when they lowered her coffin into the ground I started screaming. Then I had a dream about something I can't even really remember, but she was in it, and I woke up in a cold sweat seriously considering buying a plane ticket and heading off to Indiana on the first flight out of Williamsport. Sometimes I get these feelings, these really strong urges to do a certain thing RIGHT AWAY or the whole world is going to fall apart and take me with it. Because of the anxiety, you know. In fight-or-flight, I'm a fighter *and* a flyer. If something's wrong and I need to run, I will mow down anyone and anything in my way. But this anxiety doesn't have an outlet. There's nothing I can do about the fact that my mother has cancer. There's nothing I can do about the fact that it has metastasized to her intestines. THERE IS NOTHING I CAN DO. That does not sit well with me. I'm a fixer; I have to make it better. I have to take all the wrong things and make them right again. And if I can't do that, I get scared. The panic just builds and builds until I'm so scared I can't move, because there's nowhere to run. I can't run from the way I feel right now; I can't un-feel it or undo cancer. So I become frozen in place and just stay there, shaking. I need an outlet. If I don't siphon some of this off, I'll drown in it. So I called my mother.
She was pleasant. The conversation was actually kind of nice. But see, my mother ... how do I explain this? She can't hit me anymore. I'm too big, and too far away, and I'd nail her to a wall if she did, cancer or no. She wouldn't have to worry about cancer, because I'd disembowel her and pull it out. But since she can't hit me anymore, she plays mind games. And she plays them well. So even though I actually enjoyed our conversation, I don't trust it. I don't trust HER. But part of me, a big part of me, wants to. I want to believe the games are over. I want to believe that maybe she's had a change of heart, that maybe she'll be nicer now that mortality is literally staring her in the face. And I love her. My God, do I love her. I hate her, but I love her. And I didn't realize how much until now.
She did horrible, terrible, nasty things to me that I can hardly bring myself to speak about. Torture, and pain, and blood ... there are some things that may very well stay locked inside forever, because I can't say them. My mouth won't do it. I bear scars and injuries that will be with me for the rest of my life because of my mother. She nearly killed me. And I still love her. When I get upset, when I get scared, I still want to run to my mommy and climb up into her lap and hear the lion in her tummy growl. I want to hurl myself into her arms and keen out all my pain on her shoulder, even though most of it is her fault to start with. And right now I want my mommy more than ever. But my mommy is sick. She's dying. I can't have her, because for one I never really did, and then if there's one of us who needs to be strong for the other right now, it's me and not her.
I have Momma and Dad. I do. And I love my Dad to death. He tries to help so much. He's so earnest about it. But sometimes a girl just needs a mom, and what I really want is to run crying to Momma and have her pat me on the back and tell me everything's gonna be okay. But I'm not sure how she'd handle that. We're affectionate, we care for each other a great deal, but she's not nearly as touchy-feely as I am. I think I'd just freak her out. What I need right now, what I really need, is for some wonderful woman to just sit and hold me while I cry. It makes me feel so stupid to say that, but I really think it would help. I'll take volunteers. You don't even have to say a word; just let me cry myself out and then we can pretend it never happened.
Good grief, I'm pathetic.
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