Yesterday was week five, and she already blew me off.
I had a feeling she would, since I had last week criticized
her new “life plan,” which was basically a retraction/cancellation of the
original sensible one. She’s now cut me off as a punishment, something she’s
done many times before.
But most every other time we’ve had a rift in our
communication, I’ve reached out. Sometimes I would send a text with “I love
you, daughter” or “I hope you’re doing OK” She’d get over herself and
eventually re-engage.
Yesterday, though, I left a voicemail at the scheduled time
and followed up with one text that said, “My call went to voicemail.” It’s now
24 hours later and I’ve had no response, positive or negative, voice or text,
from her. I somehow knew that would happen, and I also knew I wasn’t going to chase her
this time.
I teased my husband when I called him from the car on my way
home from work. I told him I couldn’t wait to tell him about my phone call with
my daughter, and he was so jazzed and ready to talk about it. I savored it and
made him tell me about his day first, but then he couldn’t stand it anymore. He
said, “So . . . how is she? How was it?” I simply laughed and said, “She blew
me off.”
What could we do but laugh? It’s our joke together—we’ve
both been down this road before. My daughter is punishing me for something, but
what she doesn’t realize is that I’m OK.
I’m analyzing how I feel, a day after the brush-off. I
thought I’d be sad and be pining for that little morsel of connection with her,
but I don’t. I feel a little disappointed, maybe, slightly offended, but in no
way surprised, hurt, or angry. It’s strange to almost feel numb to your own
child’s behavior, but she finally pulled that last move that made me giggle and
tell my husband, “I told you so. She’ll never come through.”
I can only hope she’s at peace with herself and her choices.
She’s 25 and has complete dominion over her life. She gets to live where she
wants, eat what she wants, date who she wants, buy what she wants, screw up how
she wants . . . I have no say, and my input clearly doesn’t matter. I
definitely don’t get any credit for knowing her for 25 years or for providing
her with important life skills (which she pretty much doesn’t use).
I know I can’t just walk away and pretend she doesn’t exist,
but I don’t agree with my husband when he insists, “She needs you! You can’t
distance yourself.” For my sake, I have to do what I intended to do for a long
time—give myself time and space to take care of myself and accept this. Her
abuse of me is exhausting and I don’t feel like her mother. I don’t know her at
all because she doesn’t let me know her.
I used to feel like my heart was broken, but it’s beyond
that now. It’s like I don’t even have a heart when it comes to her anymore. I’m
numb, disconnected, cast out, worn-out, nonfunctional. I’m not proud of that,
but when I think back to all I’ve been through with her, I believe in my heart
that my nurturing has run its course and there’s nothing more for me to do. I’ve
seen her through depression, eating disorders, legal problems, abortions,
arrests, breakups, sexual identity crises, dropping out of HS, losing jobs,
drugs, smoking, accidents, moving away multiple times, money and debt problems, trashing apartments and
condos, dropping out of cosmo school, nonstop crying, ADHD treatment . . . the
list is beyond comprehension. She’s cost me time, emotion, patience, and more
money than I can count. What do I get in return? Rejection, punishment,
disrespect. She clearly doesn’t love me or care about me, but it’s probably a symptom
of something else. But I can no longer help her find her way when she doesn’t
let me.
She doesn’t treat me like a loving daughter would. I must not be
her mother. So who am I now?
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