5:14 p.m. - 2001-06-30
My Mother - Part II
I don�t make it a habit to devote an entire entry to the topic of my mother. But, nevertheless, here we go�
My mom. She�s unbelievably weird. It�s embarrassing how weird she is. But a lot of the times, it�s pretty funny. But she�s got this habit of taking things out on me that I�m not even responsible for, or getting really pissed off over something so insignificant.
I best tell you now, I don�t love my mother. Now, some people may be thinking �Oh, my God! How can you say that?!� Hear me out, k? Let�s define �love� shall we. Love isn�t just caring about someone. Granted, that�s part of it. But, I can care about a girl who�s crying in the bathroom at school, but I don�t love her. I care about my mother, as I care for all of my family. There are things though. Things that are required for someone to love you and for you to love them in return. First of all, actions speak louder than words. A man who beats his wife tells her that he loves her, but does he? No. If he loved her, why would he beat her? My mother�s actions speak loud and clear, and most of the time, they are not saying, �Erica, I love you.� Not that they�re negative all the time. It�s just that they�re negative too often for me. And sometimes those negative actions say, �Erica, I hate you!� Second of all, if you do something to hurt a person you love, you would feel remorse, right? Even if it was intentional, you feel sorry. The negative shit that happens, and that my mother knows good and well that it hurts me, she never says sorry, she never feels remorse. And if she did, I wouldn�t know. She just continues to ridicule me relentlessly for no good reason, other than �I have nothing better to do than destroy my daughter�s self-esteem.� Now, that�s not a direct quote, but, as I said before, actions speak louder than words. Third, giving birth to someone is a piece of cake. Okay, now, I�ve never had a baby. I�ve never even had sex, but it�s RAISING the child where the real work comes in. She gave me life; this is true. She also gave me long nights filled with tears that fall relentlessly. So, what do you do? Fourth, material stuff is important, but not as important as love. My mother provides very well for me. I�ve always had a roof over my head, clothes on my back, and food on the table. For this, I am grateful. And to my mother for these wonderful gifts that she had bestowed upon me, I give my most sincere thanks and gratitude, but not my love. For that you�ve got to give me time, not money. I�m obsessed with the internet. I hate to say it, but there it is. And not once has she made an effort to see what I do on this computer for hours at a time. I�m not asking her to drop everything and become obsessed with me, but a simple �So, Erica�whatcha working on now?� would help. Also, she�s trying to get me to do things that I don�t want to do. You know, kinda like the father who�s a doctor expecting his son to �follow in his footsteps� except this time it�s kinda like the mother who didn�t have a chance to do all this crap, so she�s going to try and do it vicariously through her daughter. Which doesn�t make any sense to me at all � the �doing things vicariously through other people� thing. I look at all of these things, and realize that I have an okay mom. She�s not the best mom in the world, and after hurtful words I feel so ready to �trade her in� (if it was possible), but she�s my mom, and � yeah.
