My youngest child and I have a terrible relationship right now. It hasn't been good for a long time, but lately we have simply stopped relating altogether, except for a few family gatherings where she routinely rips me apart verbally, critisizing me, my writing, my life, my essential self. She's angry. I've apologized over and over the past 3 years since my rocket ship crashed and burned in Chicago, to no avail.

Our history is a mess. I kicked her out of the house when she was fifteen and I have come to understand what a stupid and rash action this was. I couldn't handle her at the time, but I wish I would have figured out a way to deal with her temper and her self destructive acting out, but I was a part of the reason she was acting out, given the disastrous Titanic of my 2nd marriage ending and all the internal and external changes going on in our household. No wonder she acted out! I was just stupid in those days and I didn't have a long view or perspective. Never could I have imagined how traumatic it was for her to live with her sister in Chicago (who was only 21 at the time) go to a private school that was unstructured and "creative" and not what she needed. In  spite of all this she graduated a year early, spent a year living with my ex-husband (the most baffling thing of all!) and got herself into Ithaca College in New York. After 2 years she transferred to UIC here in Chicago where her older sister watched over her, took care of her and supported her as she navigated her way through the pre-med undergraduate program into medical school. This same older sister who is now helping her mother navigate through the treacherous waters of approaching old age, poverty, failure and reduced circumstances. Without the loving guidance of this elder child, I would be homeless. She is not nasty about it--she is patient and kind and understanding. This is truly an old soul in a beautiful and young body. 

What a forward thinking, passionate self-driven girl the baby is! So plucky, so disciplined and so amazing! I am so proud of her. This once rebellious teen is 32 and about to graduate with an MD/PhD in Neurology and Neuro-engineering and is embarking on her life's mission to do residency in Neurology at Columbia University in New York--she was matched with her first choice! Such a wonderful, lovely beautiful girl and we are not speaking to one another. I am saying goodbye to someone who wrote me off a long time ago.

I probably deserve this, no doubt, but I have been begging for forgiveness and hoping against all odds that she could turn things around and create a new relationship based on who we are now. I don't blame her--I might be the same way, although the loneliness of my own life and my own self realizations made me a forgiving person early on. I forgave my parents in the 20's, even though they made many mistakes. Don't we all! I was 33 when my mother died suddenly. Parenting is a blind act of trust, faith, arrogance, will and stupidity. I was all of these and more, but I know the kids know I loved them. I know she knows I loved her then and love her now, but her stance is that I created permanent trauma in her life by throwing her out of my life at age 15 instead of hanging in there and getting her out the door at age 18 in a smoother, more loving transition. I failed as a parent, the only real career I ever really had.

And now she's leaving home.

I came to Chicago because I had to. Here I am. Stuck in the same 2 rooms I've lived in since July 20o8, the month I gave up my car, had a "give away" at my storage unit and watched 4 women cart away all my stuff--dishes and cookware, (designer), clothing, shoes, office equipment,--all the stuff we say constitutes our so-called identity. At that point I had to set about rebuilding a new identity from the ground up. I had been crushed, annihilated and dissolved by life, but I was still alive, walking and talking. I had more life to live, it seems, and more to do. But just what was that? All my dreams of being a published writer simply disappeared in a puff of smoke--the smoke we call "the recession." My own private recession loomed as something similar and different. Hope for the future disappeared to be replaced with anxiety, sadness and depression. Depression and anxiety gave way to where I am now.

And where is that? Better than it was, thank God, but that's a post for another day.  

One moment at a time. I am anchored by focusing on each moment. Sometimes I forget words I used to know-- I wonder if this is early Alzheimers, and what I will do if I end up with some disease. Who will take care of me? Where will I go? How will I work?

She's leaving home and could less about where I am, what I think or what will happen to me! Her bright future looms ahead of her!

I want to give her a present but it wouldn't matter to her. What can I give her anyway? I can barely afford my own expenses and her big sister is paying my rent.  I thought of giving her a poem or story but she's made it clear she hates my work. I haven't got facility to record my music on the little keyboard I got for the 62nd birthday in January, and anyway, she hates my music too! 

She hates me.

That's what I am feeling today.

Tomorrow will be different.  

I surrender. I want to show dignity and not be one of these awful, clingy, depserate, needy mothers that follow their children everywhere. I admire women my age who "have a life." I have no life. I have a job I cannot stand, (thank God I am working, however) my writing and my music. I am not sure why I am here. I have stopped thinking about the future. I have no real obligations or compelling relationships where the "other" cannot live without me. Everyone can live without me!

I can live without myself!

I have very little to offer the soon-to-be doctor except my love and my ability to stay out of her way and leave her alone, since that is mostly what she wants. I won't be living out that fantasy of helping her move to New York or visiting her there! My son has repeatedly told me NOT to visit him in New York, as if I could afford it! He's been there since 1998 and I've visited him there twice.

Let's face it--I am a failure, a loser and my kids can't stand me!

I need to know why I am still alive.

Meanwhile, the graduation looms (May 6) and my rich sister from Scottsdale and her partner will be here and I can enjoy the entire family both ignoring me and disdaining me as the shameful, stupid poor loser of the family who didn't "plan ahead."

I will steel myself.