Speculation (12/90)

For so long I've  judged my mother for things I could not understand. 

At home she was solemn, spent too much time in her bedroom, and had trouble finishing things she’d started around the house.  And I was critical.

The outside world got the best of her, her students, extended family, her friends. She was vibrant and funny and then she’d come home, and just be. And for too long, that wasn’t enough for me.  I’d bug her for not smiling or laughing or hugging like I watched her do for everyone else.

And I was always watching. I felt slighted and unworthy of her best.

I was always, in a number of different ways, begging for more.

***

This is how it starts. Or this could be the end. The waves come so quickly that it’s hard to analyze rightly. I can only say for sure that I am in it, or I am under it.

But, I am fighting.

I spent the day hating myself for my seeming inability to keep this in check. My energy was focused solely on keeping it together. I am tired and tearful and shaky. I’ve desperately needed my own space; a quiet place where I can just be.

I am perplexed by the variance in my emotions without reason. On these days there is a constant raging battle between what I know and what I feel.  This is not who I am. Not at all who I wish to be. This is exactly who I said I’d never be.

***

I can’t help but wonder if she was under it too. I wonder if she was fighting. I imagine that the hours  she spent alone in her bedroom she was desperately hoping for sleep, just as I was tonight.

I wonder if when she was quiet and needed to be alone she was actually trying to protect me from this darkness. I wonder if this pain I’m carrying is even my own. I wonder what I must have made her feel like when I begged for energy and threw fits when she stared at me blankly or watched TV as I tried to converse with her.  

I wonder if she even had anything left to give.

***

I am not sure that I can handle such truths now. What I speculate to be her truth is enough for me to be sorry and wish that I hadn’t taken everything so personally.  I wish that I could have had some sort of understanding of the nature of this storm. I wish that I hadn’t given up on making her smile or laugh or  stopped reaching out for hugs.  

I have to believe that she was fighting, as I am now.

And I wish that were enough.