Mom’s Day
I didn't sleep in as much as I'd thought about this morning. By 7:30 I was up and recalling that I'd not set my out-of-office message on my work email. I got up, answered a few emails and set the notification up. AM suggested that we have coffee and hang out for a little bit so we pulled on some clothes and headed over to Seven Virtues for bagels, hummus and coffee. We chatted while we each looked at email, message boards, etc., I set up a Twitter account.
Then back to the house and I drove out the Gresham and met Mom at the Cost Plus. We shopped around there a little, I picked up a white cord kit for the paper lamp in our meditation room and a rather keen hat. We first attempted to go to the Truffle Hunter, a place she liked a lot and said had a very good veggie sandwich.
Once the cream cheese, cheddar cheese, and provolone cheese was taken off there was lettuce, tomato, sprouts and avocado. The place specializes in bread made on site, however, all types use buttermilk. They offered to come up with a salad (all of the ones on the menu included some type of meat). Mom and I finished our strawberry lemonades, I took my vitamin, and we went to a Chinese place she and her friends like to go to. They made sesame tofu for me special, I suspect that the bean threads & tofu were deep fried in the same oil as shrimp. It was good, a bit salty which may account for the indigestion I felt later.
I took Mom to the Dollar Tree so she could do some shopping there. We then went on to the new Goodwill. Mom found some Halloween things and a couple of shirts, I found several good things, including jeans that fit well. We then went on to the Salvation Army shop, which was on the way to take Mom home.
We were walking around the bric-a-brac and as I came around a corner I saw Mom standing there with a wooden paddle. She smacked her hand with it and laughed while saying to me, "Brings back memories doesn't it?"
I froze a little and slowly blinked my eyes. Mom seemed to sense she'd crossed some line and gave me a worried look, "Well maybe not good memories for you..."
I took a breath and quickly, quietly said to her, "No, not good memories at all and I hope you'll understand that I can't laugh with you."
I didn't say anything else I merely walked past her and started down the next aisle, not really looking at anything and feeling very still inside. I heard her say after me, "Sorry, S..."
That was it. I didn't mention it again and neither did she. I felt a little distant from her, which is a bit strange since I've already felt that way before. I wasn't motivated to say anything further about it. It felt as though I'd already said a tremendous amount.
We drove back to her house. Walking around the house I watched the two cows for a couple of minutes, feeling myself stiffen when she talked about sending them to market next year. They're practically like enormous dogs, following around to where the people are, I commented as much to Mom. Then we went out into the field to pick some corn and pull carrots. I washed up in the kitchen, pet her cats and then we walked out the car. I told her I loved her and I was glad we got to spend the day together.
Both of those are true. It felt like something changed in our relationship when I spoke to her in the store, refusing to laugh along. Who knows if that change will stay. She might obsess over it, but I suspect she will try to cram this down inside of her, distract herself, and refuse to really look at what it means.
I drove home carefully and gratefully. I felt tired. When I got home I showed AM my thrift store finds and we decided to make tempeh, lettuce, avocado and tomato sandwiches for dinner using a tomato from our garden. It involved going up to New Seasons for pretty much every ingredient except the tomato! It was nice to have AM drive after driving all day in Gresham and good to have the normalizing experience of getting groceries for dinner.
I still feel drained more than angry, more than sad even. There is still this stillness surrounding the whole thing. I don't feel any physical motivation to cry about it, not even when I told AM about it or writing about it here. I do feel a deep ache in my heart, across my collar bones, but I feel calm as well, able to observe the heavy load of emotions.
Day Before the Birthday
I woke up cold, fatigued and hurting today. I thought about just going in, getting a ride from AM rather than riding in like I'd planned. Then I realized I really didn't think sitting in the cold office (although it has been cool the building A/C has been running full blast) would be helpful at all. Zonker snuggled up next to me while I stayed in bed a little longer.
Gifts
Awoke groggy and tired again this morning. I should have made myself get up at 6:25 when I first opened my eyes and looked at the clock, but instead I dozed off again. When I finally got up a little past 7AM I stumbled around stiffly and got to working. I got through all my meetings grabbed a quick shower before going over to BM's for a massage.
It was so busy today, meetings where I actually was a participant. Hard to feel like I got any "work" done just all the talking. Yes, I know it is work and equally important, but I would have preferred to get other things done. Tomorrow is similar although I'll get to have lunch with CK in the middle which always seems to make the day go better, even the week.
I told BM about the emotional storm last weekend, how I could feel how tight and stiff my back was. Lots of really taut tendons and muscles in the shoulders and neck, energy moving out down my fingers. She thinks I may have slightly bruised my knuckle when I whacked it against the floor at Dishman which is why it hurts when I grab with that hand. She worked on that a bit as well, lengthening out and moving the tightness in the joint.
While AM made dinner I sat in the shala room, now pretty well organized (I need some kind of shelf unit). I phoned Mom and talked with her a little bit, thanking her for the box of birthday gifts. I was most thrilled with the flattened pennies she'd got on her trip this summer with her husband. This simple thing is something she can do and answer that need she feels to buy me things, they are very small, and I do enjoy them; there were over a dozen from her trip. She also sent a check so I could buy myself a magazine subscription (considering Tricycle, Shambhala Sun or Parabola). Also included was a bath soap (sodium laurel sulfate and artificial fragrance, but OK), and Halloween themed "advent" calendar, and some wreath thing I didn't quite figure out yet.
What's hard is if I tell her not to get me stuff her feelings are hurt. I then have all this stuff that I often don't know what to do with and feel a bit guilty for preferring to chuck. CK got a great introduction to this when she came with me to the Mother's Day lunch. Mom wanted to include me in all the gift giving so she'd got some little mirror/plaque thing with some greeting card-esque statement on it. Anyone who's been in my house would know looking at it that this is not something that fits at all, but she got it for me anyway because she wanted to be giving us all little gifts.
What is strange is that I do like gifts. I even specifically requested something AM could get me (a lovely shirt from Seven Virtues... bit more cleavage than I'm used to but I do think it looks good). I guess it is because sometimes Mom's gifts seems so steeped in her either feeling as though she has an obligation to get me something and/or her not always buying what really suits me. At best there is some kind of medium of the things I enjoy (squashed pennies and magazine subscriptions) and things I really don't use anymore (Halloween advent calendars, little mirror plaques, etc.). Gift giving events could also be so utterly fraught in tension and my Mom made a big deal out of my birthday, in fact I used to hold a big party every year for my birthday. Now I feel a bit uncertain what to do beyond enjoy things with my friends.
CK came over for dinner, AM made white bean & "chik'n" chili with cornbread, and we all sat in the breeze on the deck enjoying it. She noted all the red in the garden and went out to inspect. The sounds of amazement got me into my shoes, grabbing up a basket & scissors, and out to the garden with her. She held the basket while I picked at least 2 pounds of tomatoes (including a luscious, perfect brandywine), cucumbers, eggplant, and squash. We stood around the beds popping tomatoes into our mouths. CK bit into one of the chocolate cherry tomatoes, trying to halve it, and seeds and juice shot three feet through the air and landed on AM. It was glorious fun.
She hung out for a bit, we laid around in the shala looking at my pose flashcards. It gave her a laugh when I brought them out along with the CD. She had been saying how she'd like a way to learn the poses better and I'd finally organized enough to just hand something to her. There was a lovely sweet closeness to it, laying there with her in the comfortable space. We kissed a little, softly and it felt as though another sigh went up from my psyche. Not that there wasn't desire, but there was also comfort and a feeling of the deep connection, the teeth of the gears fitting together and moving forward instead of slipping and grinding.
I got my therapy appointment switched to Wednesday so I'm not ending Thursday on tears. Everything has been so at the surface and I do see the point of working on it, I just finally agreed I should rest a little for my birthday and take it easy on myself. I still think I'll work on Thursday. BM suggested that we plan around a 6PM start at Last Thursday. CK is suggesting I put in an order from something delicious from Sweet Pea, I'm thinking... maybe I'll phone Lisa tomorrow and ask what's new. The "Elvis" cake sounds intriguing although I'm equally tempted by the coconut cake, especially if it could be done with some chocolate ganache, seems like that would be lovely. Maybe with some berries on it.
I'm leaning towards taking Friday off. I can consider going to see Mom for a little bit, something I know she'd appreciate. Yeah, my birthday, but in a way I'm mindful of wanting to share the day with her and recognize how important it is to her as well. It is difficult practice having a relationship with my Mom. I mostly try to be compassionate towards her and honor her because she is the person who brought me into this existence. But there's so much history there that just hurts and the choices she makes I think are unwise much of the time, so it is hard practice.
She said she wants to read what I wrote for Ink on the Cat, I'm not sure if I should share it because it notes how I felt alienated and unsupported by my family. I know if I don't mention it again she'll likely forget about it.
Long, hot zazen
Long, hard, hot day. Went into the office from CK's and had a busy day right up until I left at 1PM to ride home in the 90 degree weather. I went slow, took drinks of water and just kept going. My face was bright red by the time I made it home. Took a call for planning activities and then went to my appointment with my therapist.
She worked on trying to help me see that I have been making progress. That I was able to talk about the shame that comes up around intimacy. She noted that a year ago I wouldn't have been able to talk at all, my body physically was shutting me down with stuttering and terrible muscle spasms on top of nausea. The shame just feels so sticky and hard to move away from.
We also started into more stuff about my Mom, the tremendously inappropriate things she would do sometimes. While going through things this week I found the card from an anonymous bouquet she had sent to school. From her perspective she was providing me a wonderful, mysterious, romantic surprise but I recall at the time being very embarrassed and uncomfortable about it. More so when I finally figured out that my Mom had done it. She never did get why I would feel anything other than delight.
It has really been starting to hit me how not only did she try to live out the things she wanted to do as a kid through me, regardless of my desire to do the same things or not, but she tried to live out what she wanted from a romantic life using me. Pushing me towards relationships, wanting to talk about boys and that I should wear things to show off my body. All very uncomfortable for me. She played along with the "family joke" that I never seemed to develop a bust line and when I complained she was the first one to note that I was being uptight and should just learn to take some teasing.
It made for a very painful zazen. I was also acutely aware of CK sitting next to me, knowing she could tell I was hurting. And we sat. Somehow, despite a desire to run away into the night. Then I chanted and did bells, somehow.
Am going to work from home tomorrow despite the weather forecast of 100+ temperature tomorrow. Just feel a bit too exposed, worn from today to go in. Besides, if I stay home I can bake in the morning and make green tea cupcakes to take out to the Jizo-bon on Saturday.
Calamity Dreams
This morning I first work up around 5AM when Phoebe, the youngest cat, decided it was time for her snuggle. I dozed off again once she settled down against my chest. When my alarm went off an hour later I had drifted into a nightmare of sorts.
I was at a team meeting for work, however, there was imminent flooding happening. People had been evacuated, however, there was not enough room to take everyone and I was one of the ones still remaining. I could see waters rushing though the street outside, rising rapidly. As I was frantically gathering together what items I felt would best prepare me to survive outside and opening a window to climb out. That's when the alarm went off and I awoke with a start. Hours later I find I can still distinctly recall feeling somewhat frantic, that I did not want to die, however I was also very calm, efficient and methodical about preparing to escape on my own. I also had a sense of acceptance if I was going to die, I just sure was going to try and prevent it if at all possible.
Work has been filled with upheaval, so the bit of work thrown in there makes sense. In Portland we've had 6 people retire due to downsizing. They all got very good retirement incentive packages, but two of the 6 were people I genuinely felt like were my friends at work. I've felt a little lost without them, especially in team meetings where sometimes the other part of our team in Denver ride roughshod over the Portland folks. That the dream was a face-to-face team meeting too doesn't surprise me as those often leave me feeling uncomfortable and hits into all those ways in which I feel awkward and uncomfortable being a part of a group.
I shared the dream with my boss, who gave me a concerned look. She's the one person I've always felt was my friend at work, it helps that she's only recently been my "boss". In the past two years I also started to open up to her a little bit about my PTSD. Moving in 2006 really set off a lot of things and I needed the space to work from home a bit more often, finding being in the office too much to handle sometimes. Especially after having had some flashbacks trigger during a team meeting; I figured she really needed to know what was going on since it was starting to affect my work to some degree.
When I told CK about it later she asked if I thought it was related to all the stuff about Mom churning around. I thought it could be -- when I look up a little online about dream interpretations I find that having a flood in a dream may represent emotional issues and tension or possibly feeling as though circumstances are out of my control. Dreams of escaping might signify good health and prosperity -- not sure if I was going to escape, but I certainly was making my plans for it and was fiercely driven to survive. I also find reference to dreams of escape being about feeling the need to discover new potential in myself, drop old habits, or that I've encountered some self-imposed limitations and feel the need to overcome them.
I suppose all of those things fit pretty well. I absolutely have a huge amount of tension around my relationship with my Mom; how to maintain as healthy and positive relationship as possible given the history there. This is tough practice. A few years ago I saw how heavy the aspect of a "hungry ghost" that hangs over my Mother and most of my family. Sometimes it gives some reason to, but never an excuse for some of the ways she behaved. Other days I really despair at how willingly, desperately she clings to delusion, resentment, and dissatisfaction. On those days I try and stick with what my teacher reminded me of, that my practice on her behalf helps her even if she refuses to help herself.
That I need to discover my own potential... If I were to say otherwise AM and CK, not to mention my Zen teacher and therapists (psychotherapy, massage therapy, physical/craniosacaral therapy), would be quick to point out this out to me. Not necessarily discover, so much as feel grounded in, believe in my own potential. Last ango my teacher suggested I work on developing pride in what I've accomplished. Months later I still struggle with it.
Sometimes I get a glimmer of it. Tonight I convinced my yoga students to try shoulderstand. They gave me dubious looks after I showed them pose, but I walked them through it carefully. After a few minutes I looked around and saw several wavering pairs of legs up in the air around the room. All of them attempted the full pose and did very well, most of them doing the pose for the first time, after I'd given them options to do only part of the pose if they felt that would be more comfortable.
That's big and obvious, it easy to take pride in that. I have confidence in my ability to teach a challenging pose to beginners while encouraging them that they could do it. I do recognize pride in the rush of positive feelings upon seeing them all trying and succeeding.
The trick is recognizing and cultivating that positive side of it elsewhere. That's what seems so much more difficult at times. I spend such amount of time not even thinking about myself. Not in a mindful denial of self or an endless litany from the inner critic. Not even that much attention to self. To learn how to have pride takes being more mindful of myself and that is challenging to learn. When I maintained a persona it was easy to be mindful of the self I thought I was, I spent a great deal of time on being caught up in the idea of self. With the persona gone, with finding the path to who I really am -- maybe who I was as a child or who I was before this lifetime -- there is a disconnect from a sense of self that makes pride or recognizing potential challenging for me.
The Path of Confrontation
Today was a bit rough. I woke up feeling tired, cold and aching in my back and legs. I'd planned to get up at 6AM to catch the 6:46 bus downtown but I turned off the alarm and slept until then. AM drove me downtown and assured me that I should consider working from home part of the day.
Normally I work from home Mondays. October through May I read for SMART on most Mondays nearby my house so it makes sense to catch up on email, read, then come home and work the rest of the day. I'll bring my work laptop home with me on Fridays so I am able to access the network via the VPN and can access all files, run Crystal Reports, etc. Most tasks I'm able to do via the Java client I can get to via a secure website, the reports are the big thing. Today just had many things that needed me to take care of in person, so in I went.
Some of it felt like the post-weekend blues on top of hurting a lot. Going to bed thinking about Mom meant for what seemed to be somewhat restless sleep. I forgot to take a melatonin so my mind jumped around in dreams that would be barely recalled when I did wake up. The temperature dropped quite a bit and sometime around 4AM I felt chilled, woke up, turned off the ceiling fan, and tried to get comfortable again.
By 12:30 the vague nausea was not going away and every time I leaned back in my chair to stretch my left hip spasmed. I phoned AM and he came down to get me. I feel bad being driven around. I hope the balance evens out that my vegan diet offsets some of the rides AM & CK give me. More than anything it just gets old hurting to a point that I want those rides. Mostly I just try to be grateful that neither of them seems to mind running me around.
I was thinking I don't know what to do with all the Mom stuff. At times I just feel fed up and angry. I've felt so tied to her all my life, a message she's spent countless hours reinforcing. How I'm her "miracle" and how she's done everything for me. That's how she sees everything, through the lens of her sacrifices. She retells things she's worried she may have done wrong as mistakes made while doing the best she could.
There's times I just want to start yelling at her and not stop. I know it is futile. Even if she were to stay an listen she'd rewrite everything I said before she committed it to memory. More than that when I weigh that action against Zen precepts I really find it lacking. It isn't that I shouldn't expect to never get angry, I should not give rise to spewing forth that anger. I should just stay with the anger to see where it comes from. Much of the time the anger at my Mom arises and I just accept that it is reasonable for me to be angry.
Anger is stressed by some as a path to healing, the backbone of recovery. Anger frightens me and I am physically ill when I feel the searing heat of it, seemingly to me that my hair shoots straight up from the temperature and energy of it. So it is easy to not give rise to that, just for that reason alone I'd rather not follow the path of anger to heal.
More than that it feels wrong to ruin whatever delusions of happiness, perhaps even moments of real happiness (I sincerely hope) my Mom has left. I believe that's why she rewrites everything to cast herself in a good light -- the overburdened, poor, single-mom who has a heart of gold even if she makes the occasional mistake. I know too well the reality of the overburdened, poor, and divided attention & absence of a single-mother in the early 1970s. I just also know that her choices weren't always mistakes and were certainly not founded in compassion much of the time. But to cope with her choices she rewrites it all so somehow she sees herself as a heroine in one of her romance novels.
I suppose I see too clearly the obvious sadness in her doing that. Seeing that I know releasing my anger with her choices at her would be so harmful. I know it wouldn't change history or really leave me feeling any better. Nor would it further any kind of progress or growth. It would merely be giving rise to anger and, although I've not made that vow formally before my community, I'm trying to practice it.
Festivals, Evangelicals, gardens, and Mom thoughts
I've had such a nice couple of days! I'm trying to allow for one day of the week where I don't get an entry down and that is fine. So far it turns out to be Saturday night. Makes sense as that night I've often had a busy day and either all of us are up late hanging or CK & I are over at her flat or out. Either way, in late and it seems far too late to try to and write too.
Yesterday we all got up. I had nodded off again and woke up at 8:30 when AM called up to me. He said he wasn't feeling well and wouldn't be able to join CK & I volunteering at the main gate of the annual Waterfront Blues Festival. A volunteer organization associated with retirees and employees of my company work together every year to process donations of money and food for the Oregon Food Bank. Since both CK & AM had expressed interest in going I suggested we all volunteer. After our stint we could enjoy the festival for a little while.
I was a little frustrated with AM who was suffering a headache he thought from sleeping downstairs on the futon, next to Bodhi's crate. CK & I had said we'd sleep over at her flat so AM could sleep upstairs, but he'd wanted us to be at the house and not driving home late after fireworks (and drunk drivers). I thought we needed to be downtown a full 30 minutes earlier than we were expected so I was feeling rather anxious as CK was still sleeping! AM ate some breakfast and felt well enough to go, CK got ready and AM discovered I was wrong on the time!
We managed to get downtown, find our group, and get dispatched to our jobs for a few hours. AM stood at the gate end dividing entrance from exit and helped security get people in through the correct gate. CK and I stood out in front of the gates handing out festival programs to people arriving. The sun wasn't out much so it was not as bright nor hot. One of the volunteers brought a bubble gun and filled the area with bubbles between trucking boxes of food from the gate to the truck.
The only thing that made for a day of practice was an older man with a younger one who were handing out pamphlets for "Jews for Jesus". A Jewish friend of mine had once told me about this group and how angry they had made her during college. She had realized that anger stayed with her beyond college and colored her impression of a lot of Christians. We'd find out later, watching the group leave in a van, that they were associated with the evangelical Apostolic Faith Church. Having that history in my background I immediately felt myself closing off to these people and watched the reaction of judgment I felt welling up in me.
The older man tried to engage both CK and I. I could feel anger rise up hot in me when I heard him say to CK that she didn't have an open mind because she wasn't willing to listen to what he had to say about Jesus. I strongly felt the urge to jump in and berate him and tell him to just shove his religion. After some moments he would try to engage me. My telling him I practiced Zen gave him just a pause before launched into my listening to the way of Christ. I tried to just breathe through my desire to tell him I'd tried that way and found it overrun with unethical men. I finally turned to the approaching festival-goers and told him that my job was to be handing out programs. He didn't try to engage CK and I much after that. AM would later note how he too had been fighting the desire
Later I would over hear him telling the younger man how he had to push past the resistance people put up. How to just make people take the flier. How to ignore what people were saying about having a faith and insist they listen to this evangelical message. How to get in front of CK and I so people would think they were getting programs, just get the fliers into peoples hands. "You've just got to do it anyway, just get in there and make them listen." I would hear him say.
When I talked about it later with CK about how angry and judging I was. How I tried to be compassionate in frankly turning my back on that man. Perhaps turning my back to him and focusing on the task assigned to me was the most compassionate act since it took away the danger of my engaging further, possibly vocalizing my anger. Compassion is the key here; CK noted that what was lacking in the way this man engaged people. She actually had a copy of the flier they were giving out; rather poorly drawn and some message about a truly "cultured" person was following the path of Christ. I found the flier to be very disingenuous.
What's strange is that when I try very hard to think from that man's perspective I wonder if he does people he's being compassionate. That he believes we're all going to go to Hell and by forcing us to Jesus, "Saving" us, he is doing an act of love. I just don't think any way that tries to use what I see as unethical methods to be a real act of faith. At times I feel like the evangelical Christians are using a "quantity" approach and the "quality", the true cultivation of deep faith, isn't as important.
We all would reflect on how the way in which Zen makes Dharma available, but does not take a stand on most topics, does not proselytize is something that attracts all of us. There is such deep, deep truth in this. Each person must find a Way. If they are forced, coerced, or done through a less-than-clear message than how can the Way be true?
We were all relieved when they finally left the festival gate.
After our stint we strolled around having some food (not truly worth reviewing) and beer. Listened to some music and enjoyed each other's company. Afterwards AM dropped both CK and I over at her flat. We should have made dinner. I'd eaten very little during the day, especially not much protein. We ended up doing other things instead and then dozed off. CK had said just before falling asleep that she felt weird -- somewhat of a code that some memory or emotion may have triggered.
I had tried to stay awake. I dozed off myself after seeing that she had taken her arm off her face and was sleeping. I woke up a little while later feeling disoriented as I very rarely nap and a nagging feeling of unease hit me. I tried to get up to check the fridge, sort out stuff that had been tossed aside, and felt rather unwell. CK awoke and saw that I wasn't feeling well. She assured me that she was fine, just over tired and drowsy from having beer.
We soon realized our respective blood sugar levels was crashing! Neither of us are diabetic or hypoglycemic, but following a fairly healthy vegan diet means that our blood sugar does drop pretty low. Both of us tend to not like the idea of eating when it gets pretty low, which isn't very helpful when all you need to do is eat! We tried to get together enough to go eat something but couldn't think it through very well. I finally said I was making tofu sandwiches, since all the ingredients were on had. We ultimately got to making salads topped with grilled tofu. Once we sat down and ate we were feeling better. We listened to a recent This American Life and a story from David Sedaris' newest book. Then ended up crawling into bed and falling hard asleep.
We were able to sleep in a little bit this morning, I finally got up a little after 10AM to shower. CK made me toast and a smoothie (which I usually have a little of to go with my toast). Then we went to my yoga class. She is going to take it this summer along with trying to go with me to Joy's class on Wednesday's. Afterward we went to my house and picked up AM. After lunch and shopping we worked in the garden. AM & CK worked on stripping the lawn out of the third raised bed and I worked on getting all the tomatoes caged, sprayed down the cucumber & summer squash with a neem solution, and did a little weeding & dead-heading.
DW came over and hung out with us. We made some tofu burgers for dinner and sundaes for dessert. DW really liked the shirt I picked up for her at Paranada while on vacation. She told us about the plans she's making to travel cross country for a while. I thought how I never had the chance to travel like that when I was young. I immediately had students loans after getting out of college, very large ones. I was rushed off to college right after high school. I paid for all my books, took out loans, and was generally broke. My parents didn't help at all except for a little bit of money once in a while. My mom also had a real insistence that if I lived with them at all I follow her rules; I cannot even imagine her ever supporting me in just taking off from the "real world" to travel around the countryside taking odd jobs!
Some strange odd things about Mom popping up this week. The memory of her trashing my room, sometimes just because I didn't fold clothing in my dresser drawers the way she insisted. Or that I just shoved stuff into the drawers, even if they closed completely and the mess inside wasn't seen. She'd just dump everything all over my bed and across the room. Emptying drawers, the closet, clearing things off of dresser tops.
It popped into my mind while making the bed at CK's flat. She had once commented on how I almost always make the bed. It made me laugh to think of this thing I do now, not over done, just really neatening the bedding, was such a war ground with my Mom. Then tonight thinking of the way she tried to point me, direct me always. I really would never have gotten support to leave and had I left she'd have told me I couldn't come back. She practically forced me out of the house when I started dating Anthony, even though I wasn't ready to live with someone. If I hadn't been pushed out I'd likely have never married him, then divorced.