Thoughts of My Mother

Ace and I discussed his recent thoughts on me trying to have a relationship with my mother again. He reminded me that his plan from the beginning was to let me decide how I wanted to that relationship to be resolved. I reminded him of his question to me on if I would ever truly be able to fully relax around my mother, or if I would be waiting for a shoe to drop, even if I felt I had evidence that she had truly changed.

All of that got me thinking of planning our wedding. We originally thought of having our parents and a couple of friends in a private ceremony and then having a bigger ceremony a year later when we could afford to do it right.

My mother whined that we didn't even want to allow her to invite her sister (I wasn't aware they were all that close, since I didn't see my aunt all that often), and if her sister couldn't come, she didn't really want to be there either. Besides, if we got married and then had a large ceremony the next year, everyone would think we were doing it for the presents (um... no, we wanted people to see the ceremony, we just wanted to do it how we wanted it). And all I could think then was that suddenly my wedding wasn't about me anymore, which made me sad, because who else is the wedding supposed to be about than the bride (and the groom, but Ace was helping plan it).

So, instead of a small wedding to create a legal union before having our dream ceremony (we weren't necessarily going to tell everyone we were married that year instead of the next), we had a medium sized wedding that wasn't fully what we wanted. It was beautiful and I have good memories of it, but it wasn't really my dream wedding.

It did have Ace and I deciding that we are going to let our kids plan their weddings for them, instead of for us. We won't ask to invite anyone (they can ask us if we want to invite people, but we aren't forcing them to invite anyone), we won't even ask them to invite us (if they don't want us there). We want them to be satisfied with their wedding and to remember that it was all about them.

It's been over 2 years since I've even seen my mother any place other than my dreams. For my birthday the year I stopped talking to her, she sent me a card, with a check, to my in-laws (a passive-aggressive move? trying to get an ally? who knows?). I signed the check over to my church (she didn't particularly care for where I was going to church). For Christmas that year, she sent a card, with cash, along with my brother and sister to my dad's, we spent the money on a massage for me and gave the rest. She didn't do anything for my last birthday and at Christmas this last year she only sent a card with nothing else in it (I've sent her no correspondence at all).

I think the point of the cards was to show she was trying to maintain contact (even though I asked her not to contact me at all). The only type of contact that was offered was her e-mailing Ace to find out how I was, if I was still mad, and that sort of thing. Guess how often that's happened (here's a hint, never).

Well, that's enough about relationship, or lack there of, with my mother. I'm going to relax and watch TV.

TTFN!