Jagged Thoughts

It is late but I don't want to go to bed.

If I go to bed it means today is officially over and I'll awake to the day I dread.

She is arriving tomorrow evening.

EWO.

She is 83 now. So old. So many years of life.

She plans this arrival on the day after Mothers Day.

I don't want to celebrate her being my Mother.

I don't want to hurt her...but how does one say, "I don't want to think of you as my mother?"

I spend every day of my life squashing memories of the time she wore that label and had me under her control.

I did not feel this anger. This sadness...this disgust until the day I held my son in my arms for the first time.

Every year that passes (in raising my son) opens my eyes to just how horrible of a "mother" she was.

I fight with my entire being to prevent my son from feeling pain. My soul lights up when he laughs and his eyes dance with happiness.

I kiss and hug him as often as he will let me.

I cannot understand how a Mother would feel or do anything less for her child.

But she is 83.

She is at the ending years of her life.

And I cannot make myself say the words to her I feel rolling around inside me like jagged pebbles.

I cannot hurt her.

As she has so often hurt me.