Yesterday in A Childhood Lost

I always feel so tired after talking with my mom.

This weekend, mom sent a message to me and my husband inviting us over for dinner. No explanation about her behavior over the last months. No hint of anything. Just an invitation, as if nothing had ever happened.
I didn’t respond. In fact I removed myself from the group and blocked her on messenger. But a few days later, I did message her. I wrote “I noticed you sent (DH)& I an invite after acting very strange for the past months. Care to talk about it?”
So. We did meet at a public park and walked around for an hour and a half. She had all the cliches. All of them. I didn’t suffer through most of them. It was exhausting. I started out with the obvious.
“I felt really hurt and confused from what you said to me the last time we spoke.” I told her.
She didn’t even acknowledge that. Just denied that she ever called me names or told me that I don’t have feelings.

Even though I asked repeatedly, she really didn’t bother answering most of my questions. She either denied anything ever happened or had some kind of excuse about her feelings. A lot of what she said was contradictory. Mom has never been consistent, so I am just saying this as a way of describing her manner of speaking.

“I wasn’t even a mother.” mom said sadly.
“I know.” I replied.

“Do you think you deserve forgiveness?” I asked her.
“Yes.” unhesitatingly, without doubt, and completely without irony.

“I love my mother and I am happy about that.” she said.
“Oh god no.” she said in response to me asking if she would have made the decision to make her mother my godmother again. “I wouldn’t make that mistake- she’s… incapable of knowing how to love.”

“I really like myself now.” she told me. “I’m a different person. I’ve changed.”
“How?” I asked.
“Well… I’m processing things. I’m in therapy now.”
“Oh? What kinds of things have you processed?”
“I’ve forgiven your grandmother and your uncle. I am happy now. It’s such a relief.”
“You forgave unrepentant evildoers?” I asked, incredulous. “Aren’t they still dangerous?”
“Oh, I don’t think so…”

“You realize that you abandoned me?” I asked her. “Grandma abandoned you and and you abandoned me.”
“I know. I’ve realized that.” she said.
At this, I felt a knife slide through my heart. “What?” I asked, almost in tears. “How… how could you know that… and never even tell me?”
“I didn’t know it until you told me.” she said gently.
And, I realized that knife had slide into my heart from the back. I realized my mom never had thought about anything, and she never would.

My mom doesn’t give a fuck about me.