My valliant effort

She asked the question that I had not dared to ask myself. I already knew the answer and I didn't like it.

Why hadn't I written another blog?

The answer came to my fingers faster than it would have ever come to my lips and I typed honestly: I felt my initial attempt at blogging was quite successful. Even if no one but me ever read it. It was a piece of writing that I liked. and I was petrified that any further attempt would fall shorter than an inch worm in comparison.
I made no attempt to sensor my answer. not that I often do, but in this instance I made even less attempt to do so.

So now that I've copped to that, let's move on shall we?

Back to Ms. Beth and I........

I started writing the following a couple of weeks ago.

My mother and I today:

On Easter this year, my mother called and I passed the phone to my sister without answering it. My niece noticed and giggled. "Is that Nana?" she asked.
I gave my sister a "busted" glance and said no. My niece didn't believe me and said so aloud.

I avoid her. I love her. I admire her. I can't deal with her. My struggle with her is which came first? Was it her alienation or mine? I don't know. I've been asking myself for the better part of my life how this came to be and the best that I can come up with is that it's a little of both. I look like my mother, I talk like her, and I often think like her. I have come to realize that it is herself that she has such difficulty loving. And that makes it hard for her to love me.

I'm going to see her next week. For reasons that seem as complex and convoluted as an Escher piece, despite all that I've previously stated about the relationship between my mother and I, one thing has remained constant and contrary to all else: she and I are so much better when it's just the two of us (odd, I know). It seems that the the thin web that binds us is stressed so tenuously when any other variable is introduced to the situation. It seems that all it takes is one child, one sibling, one bystander.......and every action is an insult, a jab.

I stopped there. I honestly don't understand the rest. How do you explain something that makes no sense to you? Sometimes I get sick of trying to figure her out. I tire of rehashing her actions and reactions looking for some reason, a concrete nugget that I can point to and kick about and identify as the source of all the world's ills. Or just hers.

Rationally, I know that that won't happen. (But ahhhh! wouldn't it be nice!) I know that, just like me and like you, she is complicated and there never was just one thing that mucked up the works for her. Who she is today is a constantly affected by her experiences past and present. So this is my present. And I told you how it all began.
Someday we'll get to all the stuff that happened in between.