"If it's not one thing, it's your mother."
(i deleted this by mistake. thank you, Natalie, for helping me find the cache. i had 36 ratings and there are some wonderful comments that are missing now, but i'm just grateful to have recovered this at all. and i LOVE these Early Kindergarten colors!)
I'm not a big fan of the holidays, being a widow, estranged from my extended family and agoraphobic/misanthropic as well, never mind that this is the third holiday season since my late husband's medical bills and my own completely wiped me out financially. This was before the official economic collapse. I have so much empathy for those who are going through the same thing now. So this holiday season I was officially poor and living in senior low income housing with my service dogs Ella Fitzgerald and Cocoa Chanel (she is cocoa colored) and my benign pituitary brain tumor.When I saw that the subsidized apartments are all on long corridors, I got excited about the possibilities of a kind of aged college dorm or of my at least getting to have coffee with some cool people my age and older. Well, it turns out that chronically poor old people are not a lot of fun and no one really cares for me. It's disappointing and annoying that I'm so unpopular. No one here even knows that I'm funny, and I'm considered pretty humorous. Many have tragic tales of woe to relate and tend to step on all my punchlines. Hurts my vanity an embarrassing amount.
I was a screenwriter back in the day and wrote a lot of comedy and even got up the courage to do standup open mike several times, to laughter and even applause, which is a big big deal for someone who is agoraphobic and whose biggest fear is People. Not strangers so much. Strangers are often kind and, if they're not, who cares? I go everywhere with two ridiculous small service dogs so I tend to mostly meet other dog lovers, most of whom are pretty pleasant. Now it's Neighbors who scare me the most.
Typical conversation with one of my fellow residents:
Me: I'm so envious of your grandchildren. I don't have any kids that I know of (well, lovely stepkids but they are teens and not ready to reproduce) and would love to go straight to grandkids by finding a single Grandpa...Beat...(going for funny here) But I'm not sure what to do about it, stake out the zoo on the weekends...?
FR: The zoo's really expensive.
Me: (quietly)... lurk by the monkey cage?
Okay, so the holidays were lonely. The good friends who haven't dumped me for being a loser are in Hell Lay or back in Boston, and I was missing my late husband beyond words and feeling so angry at him for leaving me. So I did this incredibly idiotic thing and reached out to my mother, from whom I've been estranged for almost 20 years. I've been working on forgiving her for decades, for my soul's sake, and ridiculously naively thought that maybe there was some level on which we could connect now that I'm in my fifties and she's an octogenarian.
Now you have to understand that this woman is not your ordinary terrible mother. Lying, cheating and stealing have always been big on her list of favorite activities, along with telling me what a horrible failure I was even as Harvard acceptance letter arrived. God can be kind, when he's not too busy, and finally she went to prison for perjury for lying to a Grand Jury about paying bribes to building inspectors back when she was still a real estate developer/architect/riverboat gambler.
She kept insisting that it was a feminist issue and that's why the men did not get jail time while she did. Well, I was told by one of the lawyers involved that the men finally admitted that they paid the bribes and they got community service. My lovely mother kept lying to the bitter end which really pissed off the DA. She's never had any idea what the truth is. It's like: "Truth, meet my mother." "Mother, meet Truth."
I secretly felt that the Federal government had validated my my reality. I'm not a complete monster, so of course I cried and tried to get her on anti-depressants so she wouldn't completely fall apart. She was afraid of getting addicted, as someone who is arrogant and often deliberately ignorant. Plus she loathed my psychiatrist father and everything to do with his profession. Never any chance that she would get help for the narcissistic personality disorder.
I started calling her "Leona Helmsley in Polyester" and, more recently, the appellation became "Martha Stewart in Microfiber." She got three months in Lexington, Kentucky's federal medium security facility. I was so hoping that Squeaky Fromme was imprisoned there and that she'd come back talking about her friend Squeaky, but no dice.
Leona and I have been mostly estranged since I hit puberty, but she refused to help me, despite believing me, when I sued someone who abused me, for damages -- in fact she warned the person because she didn't want the public embarrassment -- so it's been pretty much cold Cold War the past two decades.
Leona was always a huge fan of opera. I was not. Then, recently, I bought "The Opera Album" which is kind of a compilation of the greatest hits of opera arias. And I rewatched the movie "Philadelphia" because I was feeling sorry for myself about the whole husband dying and getting a brain tumor thing, and I wanted to get my priorities straight. The scene where Tom Hanks is sick and emaciated and listening to and conducting opera in some reddish light got to me even more this time around. It really sunk in that opera is the music that truly expresses the heartbreak and angst of the bleakest and darkest hours of human existence.
So I decided to ask my mother for something very very simple, something that she couldn't really f--- up, so I could feel that she loved me a tiny tiny bit and maybe that might help me along on the forgiveness path. I emailed her and asked her to burn a couple of opera cds (she was one of the first to get on the computer bandwagon) for me since I now somewhat enjoyed it.
Two weeks later, she emailed back that she didn't have any cds -- she owned millions of dollars of property back a ways, but she was borrowing from Peter to pay Paul and the house of cards fell apart when she went to prison, so she's almost as poor as I am -- but she had her reel-to-reel tapes and would make me some cassettes.
Crap. I knew immediately that this was not going to turn out well. I reminded her that I love the sound quality of cds and that that is what I listen to. Made no difference at all. She said she needed a couple of days and then she'd send the tapes.
So several weeks later this large box arrived. I left it sitting there overnight because I just couldn't face it. The next day I reluctantly tore it open and it was worse than I had even imagined. She had sent me a tape player/recorder and some tiny speakers. The machine, of course, was useless, but the tapes, God, the tapes were something else. There were many many cassettes, old old old ones, without casings, and all labeled in teeny tiny handwriting that I couldn't decipher, even with my reading glasses. Leona had taped old old old reel-to-reel tape onto old old old tapes. I can't even describe the sound "quality". It was pretty much just scratch versus scratch.
I'm ashamed to say that I lost it. I lost it bigtime. ..
To Be Continued...
NOTES for Part Two: Opera's a sore subject from back when I was 10 and one of few Jews at a private school full of future debutantes. Leona served my "friends" and I a spaghetti dinner (my classmates had invited me to fancy meals with silver bells on the table and responding maids/butlers) and then dropped the girls and I off at the opera. It was Semiramedi with joan sutherland and marilyn horne. And, for some incomprehensible reason, my"mother" left us there. When she was the opera fan and we were 10!!!!! Then she forgot to pick us up and there we were, 4 or 5 ten-year-olds out on the streets of downtown Boston, in the winter. I wanted to fall through the sidewalk and never reappear. Eventually she must have come to pick us up, but by then I had died from mortification, boredom and the cold.
Talk about forgiveness a bit and about how you have to be very specific with God because he/she/it is very very busy. How my nickname is Teddy but God calls me Tedley, a mix of Teddy and Tetley tea, and I figure, close enough.
Comments
I don't credit God with kindness, ever, but I would give him a sense of humor. A box of warped unusable tapes...seems I've received that gift myself, more than once...
Cymraeg, admit it, dude, you just want to hug me. :) which is just fine except that we're a continent away from each other. don't apologize for having good parents. shit, man, you have what everyone wants, to have been loved and cherished. hey, i'm impressed that someone like you, from an actual good childhood, can relate to someone like me. but then, not every post i write is this dark. :) love love love
and huge gratitude for both of you!!! i'm not going to PM everyone about this one. people are tired of me. but if either of you wants to promote it for me???? more love love love.
that you seem, and i seem, and everyone seems,
to be frantically running from
for we fear final judgment
and so: our judgment comes from our karma
our actions, our doing...
and now u are among the poor old people
and they are boring as dirt
but you can shine, girl, and get them
to be enthusiastic again, for that is the gift
we can give to our fellow humans, along with forgiveness
of course: enthusiasm, life, being, the joi de vive ya got accumulated in those poor old brain cells and body that have
been tortured and mortified and brought to this place
where you can write the human condition so beautifully..
i missed you..sorry...been kinda distracted,
being homeless..it aint so bad...i am alive...safe...that is all ican really ask of society
love Jim
R~
But I agree with others here: you're able to process the overt and covert abuse in such a way that we, your readers, can relate, understand--and perhaps most important of all, laugh with you about it! Now that's a rare gift! So I thank you for giving me this gift today (it's LOTS better than a box of unusable tapes!). Rated, of course. I want to know more about the younger Teddy (or Tedley--that's funny, too!). D
Rated
I love the part about how you tried to talk to your neighbor
how did your Mom get like that
I can see how you became a writer and comic
to explain and deal with the weirdness
you are great!!
I wanted to let you know that it is a wonderful and well-written post. It's so hard to reach out to a family member and then deal with disappointment once again. You're so amazing to try again.
I agree with scoubidou...it's like being born with clubfoot....
At least she tried with the tapes.
I would have gotten a bill for the tapes and the recorder.
OTOH, I know all about narcissistic personality disorder.
So, there's that.
Best of luck.
Remain calm.
EEK!!!
Rated. Rated. A Billion times rated if I could!! ~big hugs~
oh god, James!!!! i adore you. and i've missed you so much. i hope you read my PM back to you and my giant comment on your last homeless post. i hope so. thank you for this gorgeous piece of writing. i love how wise you are, always are, even in the scariest of circumstances. you are in my prayers and i love love love you for your courage and generosity. i'm honored that you came here for me today!!!! god, i needed your wise words today, James. it's a PTSD day, a bad one.
oh, Bobbot, i'm glad you're feeling better. and many people have tired of me and will tire of me but that' slife in the big city. y0ur loyalty adn friendship mean the whole world to me. and, Bob, i do understand my narcissistic sociopathic parents. they were both hideously abused by their parents and other relatives. it's no puzzle why they are the way they are. every parent makes mistakes. it's the hardest job in the world!!!! raising a child. i know that your kids forgive you for whatever you did or think you did.
but when you are raping your child and/or calling her a failure all the time and stalking her all the time and almsot everyone you know is a shrink and you are either a shrink or married to one?????/ you get yourself some flying fucking help and if you don't, then hyou are culpable as shit. that's all im' saying. and i couldn't be funny about thsi if i hadn't forgiven both of them quite a lot. love love love!!
Owl Girl!! thank you from one sister to another. well, one eunuch to a fabulous sister. thank you for always "getting" me. that is one of my many many missions, to turn pain into power and creativity and education and everything that is good. today i'm in huge emotional pain because of a hideous Dental incident yesterday (which will soon be known as the Great Dental Abuse Incident of October, 2009) but this will pass and i'll go back to making writing Lemonade out of the lemons i was dealt, that most of us where dealt. i love you beyond words, sweetheart, love love love and graittude
I hope you are feeling an eensy bit better!
oh, Nikki, girl, you sahying it's good writing means so much to me. i'm going to scan a photo of my "mother" and add it in. a visual is always nice. i know you know that. and please PM me when you have a new post. i'm getting behind again. love love love!
oh, my YO, you always make me almost cry -- my eyelids are chronically infected. another issue between me and godiverse. giving me a carpy life and blocking my tear ducts??? so freaking not right. -- because you say such kind and lovely things and you really get on an organic level what im' trying to do with my wriitng. and it works. people are mentioning their mommie dearests too. it's the banality of the evil that gets to you every time and i know that you KNOW about all of this. love love love!!
oh, Boanerges!!!! shit, i miss you so much. well, i missed you so much. so happy you're back. and honored that you are coming to read my posts and even liking and rating them, man. your post is excellent. i love seeing your great chops in action. love love lvoe!
oh, wow, Kathy! thank you for the very very sweet and understanding comment. my mother got that way because she was horrifically abused. her mother, my "grandmother", would tie her up and force feed her. plus there was a lot of mental illness in the family and that whole Children of the Holicaust thang too. it was all hideous and we all pretended that it was all fine. that is what murders people's souls. the pretending. love lvoe love!
Rated not because you asked, but because you're funny!
oh Gwen, you have empathy and compassion up the ying yang and i love that in a great writer. :) i was desperate of i wouldn't have reached out to my "mother". i needed money because my late brain tumor was eating up my funds. so i reached out and told her that i had the tumor and needed help. she sent a check with a letter that was all about her. all about her! she barely mentioned my illness, nor did she say she was sorry. i never received one card or one flower from her or any "family" member. please forgive me for being so self-pitying. this is not the Norm for me. it's the PTSD talkign. anyway, i love you for giving me my props for taking that big risk. it almsot killed me but i did it. love love love
my Delores!!!! i love seeing you here. yes, you really picked up on that whole opera situation. i couldn't even create this story and im' a good writer. it was awful. beyond awful. i needed to get it out there in the godiverse and away from me. :) love love love and huge gratitude for you and your compassion.
oh, thank you, Pamela. i love you so much. yes, i'm writing some and re-posting some and considering scanning some more and it's an okay place to be. today im' in PTSD mode because of something hideous but today is a new day and i will write and re-post some more!!! are you doing your 15 minute scanning? love love love
Nelly! you are so right, girl. most comedians have really been there and back and they heal themselves -- well, many don't -- by turning the hideous stuff into comedy. many are drug addicts and drunks. but i love that they do this rather than just disappear down the rabbit hole. and i feel blessed that im' able to turn pain into entertainment many days. love love love
and huge gratitude for all!!!
Connie, i love you and thanks for showing up this time for a post of mine. is see that many poeple have favorited you so i know that you'ove been commenting on the post of others. that is lovely for them. if you know about NPD then you know that she wantd to make those tapes, that doing that pleased her. not me. and telling me to be calm after you've read about the dental trauma yesterday and you know i have a major panic disorder, well, it's kind of you but it misses who i am by several miles. thanks for coming by. i'm envious of the others' whose posts you read regularly. love love love
oh, Mamoore, i'm sorry taht you could relate to this at all. i don't wish this kind of parent on anyone. but it is what it is and it was what it was and i forgave her a lot this last time because i saw how truly and completely damaged she is. to not even be able to tell your daughter that you are sorry that she has a brain tumor or to send a card or some flowers???? you have to be in excruciating pain to be that withholding and unloving. you are so right about everything. i have my missions in life and one of them is to do my best to treat others the way i so wish that i had been treated and the way i want to be treated now. lvoe love lvoe and so much gratitude for the warmth of your comments. it just radiates through the screen!!
LL2, i can hardly bear hearing about your family gatherings. they sound so wonderful and i miss being around a good family so much. my redneck in-laws are wonderful and generous but we have little in common. i wish i was not this agoraphobic and could come down to where you guys are. anyway, thank you for coming by and cheering me on. i love love love you.
There is the "we can't choose our DNA" thing. I will share that in my family, my paternal grandmother is called "Grambo" as in Rambo with a G. The stories are like what you might read about Joan Crawford, but with far less style. Grambo has never ever apologized to anyone for any thing. It just isn't going to happen. I used to have nightmares, but am not afraid of her any more. I just feel sorry for her. She is a very talented woman in her 80s whose mental illness swallowed most of her life and part of mine -- along with chunks of the lives and realities of uncles, aunts and cousins. Too bad. She could have been a great and well-known artist. A great person.
I applaud you for trying. I half expected you to say the box from your mother contained family pictures from which your image had been cut out, removed.
So sorry for the loss of your husband.
I'll think of you the next time I smile at a child or go to the animal shelter to pet cats and dogs without homes. For you see, I have figured out that there are small but fulfilling ways to share the love that was intended for another. (Rated - if I can remember to scroll back up in order to do that!)
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RATED!
R~~
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and im' so grateful to those of you who came by for the first time!!! thank you so much. i'm not going ot PM my poor readers again. but i am going to reward all of my rewards but doing my best to scan a whole bunch of photos that i found and that i know that some of you will LOVE LOVE LOVE. the text will not be as clever because i'm extremely ill with the chronic fatigue shit. 101 fever and all of the joy that comes with that. i feel like i have the flu a good portion of the time. i wish i'd been kinder to the CFS people whom i met over the years. this is horrible.
love love love and so much gratitude, guys. i'll try to thank each of you but if i don't, just know that i adore all of you for being friends as well as readers.
http://74.125.153.132/search?q=cache:UG6vuDq8FOsJ:open.salon.com/blog/theodora_lengle_knight/2009/10/15/if_its_not_one_thing_its_your_mother_robinwilliams+theodora+knight+if+it%27s+not+one+thing&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au
now, this is the aussie version, because natalie lives in Oz. but i don't think that makes any difference. good news, you don' thave to completely despair if you idiotically delete a post by mistake because you're having flashbacks or whatever. :)
Oh, it seems you meant Natalie Notpendantic. And I had been feeling helpful all day. ;-) (Re-rated)
I'm so glad it worked.
Aim, girl!!! thanks for checking this out. i'm so grateful. i love the way it looks but you know my weird taste. lvoe love love
oh Bob, i hope you're feeling better,m sweetheart. i invented a new word because i didn't have one to explain how the chronic fatigue makes me feel. jsut like the fucking flu, actually. so the word is: Flutigue!!!!! i'm so clever. thank you for coming back and giving me some sugar. i adore you. love love love
Buffy!!!!! i love what you said. i misread your writign and thought you wrote recovered past. it's both!!! my "mother" stuff and my LOVE of color. you rock, sheila. so much. lvoe lvoe love
Roger!!! thank you, love, for re rating. i'm heartsick because you left the most wonderful and validating comment on the post before it died. but i have what you said in my heart. love love lvoe
Cocoa, i'm delighted to see you here too! this is very cool. lvoe love love
oh, Scanman!! thank you for coming back. you are one of a kind too, love. i love knowing that you have my back. i have yours too, man. love love love
Tinkerbelle!!! you rock, dude, for coming back. i LOVE the colors. i'm about half child, i suspect. you're asking me about finding caches on google??? you're the IT guy, love. love love love
Owl, girl!! have you not been posting much or am i just missing your stuff? i need to go back to Recent posts again. i HATE that i'ts on the cover page, which i avoid at all costs. love love love
and so much Gratitude for all o fyou
Natalie M, thanks for coming by. i'm sure you do a lot of things right. and, yes, there is more than one Natalie on here. i'm so happy that most of this post was saved. love love love
Natalie Not!!! my wonderful savior in the wee hours. you kicked ass, love. i'm so grateful. i was really heartsick over losing this post and comments. thanks for coming back! love love love
and major Gratitude for all of you being so sweet!