Pouring my heart out…
My mother loves life, every single simple little moment. Today she played Bingo. She was truly happy. She always is when she is surrounded by people. That was really all she ever needed, a social environment. She knew how to make herself popular wherever she went in life, the synagogue, senior citizen summer camp, the retirement community, the local Bingo hall. She is always funny and friendly.
My mother managed to hang on to a single regret which defined her entire existence. “I never finished High School or went to College.” In her mind, it made her inherently unworthy. It also made her wildly insecure. So she made it her life’s goal to make sure her children would never ever have the same regret. She made sure we each finished High School, and College. If we had not, then once again she would be proven to be unworthy. She looked in the mirror and not only saw her own reflection, but mine as well. In her mind, we were one person sharing two bodies. Splitting our soul into two lives left me in a constant state of confusion. I did not trust myself because I had no self. However, it gave her the sense of security she longed for all her life ever since being abandoned as a young child.
I love my mother. I see her everyday because I know she will not be here forever. Today I watched her play Bingo and tried to light up the room with my ever present smiling bubbly personality so she could bask in the light of my love, and so all the other patients who rarely have visitors could marvel and compliment her on how lucky she is to have this kind of devotion and attention. I have become the Nursing Home Mascot, pushing other resident’s wheelchairs and getting them sodas and ice creams and I know my mother is watching me be the helpful “little girl” and she is so proud. She never fails to let people know how she raised me all by herself and how she made sure I went to college. My “polished” presence provides her with so much joy. There is no doubt as to “our” shared worthiness.
The Bingo caller turns the cage filled with balls and the rumbling drives me a little nuts. My mother makes me play my own Bingo Card even though only residents are allowed to “win”. I dutifully place the blue chips and never call out even when I have 5 in a row. I know I am not supposed to win. And my mind wanders over our lives as the balls tumble down the short shoot out of the cage. What my mother never realized is we all earn our own regrets. We cannot erase our own regrets by having our children accomplish what we did not. So now I sit here with my regrets, feeling my own sense of worthlessness, a life unfulfilled. I am playing a game I am not allowed to win. No wonder I love the movie Cinema Paradiso so much. It is the scene when the old man whispers into the young ones ear, “leave, leave and never come back.” He is not just giving him permission to leave, he is demanding it. The wise old man is telling his young “son” there is a whole world out there just waiting for you and you can see it and taste it and travel it and it will enrich your very soul. It makes my heart pound just thinking about it.
I never left 6242 North Rockwell, because I never left my mother. The only thing I left was a basket full of my dreams in the back of my own mind. I let the fear imprison me in this reflection my mother saw. Her fears became my fears and insecurities. Never tell a child you feel worthless, if you are the fruit from which their seed is sewn. I know my mother could never have realized her constant self-doubt was seeping its way down into the earth where I was planted. Yet, now when I look in the mirror it is empty. I never tried to become a writer, a comedienne, an attorney, a world traveler. Or at least I did not try hard enough, or I would not be sitting here typing these worthless words. I hope my children never see this. I don’t want it to make them feel bad about themselves. I never let them know how bad I feel about myself for that very reason.
I tell my children, yes you will go away to college, but that is only the beginning. It is a means to an end, and not an end in of itself. Try things, pursue things, find things you love to do and what you want to be. I will give you the necessary tools but you have to build your own dream ship. You don’t have to be good at it, you just have to love it. I so want to break the cycle, give them their very own lives. Encourage them to explore the unknown. Leave me alone one day, I don’t care. I want you to. My joy will come from seeing you find your own joy.
I am not angry at my mother. I love her with all my heart. We all play the hand we are dealt. My mother and I play kalookie everyday. I love life too. I still appreciate the flowers, the movies, dinners with friends, lord knows I love to laugh. I know I have to find joy wherever I am, even if it is always in the same place, right here….I am not feeling sorry for myself, just a little disappointed thinking there was so much more I never got to see and when my mother passes, part of me is passing as well and I am not sure how I can reconcile the regrets, hers and mine.
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