There were tears. The tears were enough to fill a small pail–this time. Every time her sobs became audible, the garbage disposal was turned on–presumably so the person downstairs wouldn’t have to hear the fruits of her labor. Glory was sure that the woman she called “mommy” for her whole life, was a special kind of masochist. It was almost as though peace in her household was an unwelcome entity. It made her itch for drama. She needed drama around her, in her, about her to feel whole. To feel alive. To feel like her life wasn’t as worthless as she made it. She stole sips of whatever was strong enough and handy. Glory knew it. Her family knew it. In fact, everybody who knew her, knew she was a highly functional drunk. But nobody said anything, so she went about her life as though she was hiding something. Except for those days when she wouldn’t drink and the pressure of her feening for it would cause her to spew out these erratic, silly, petty, hateful words and actions. When she would be angry for no reason at all and say the most awful things. It was those days that Glory’s tears would become audible and the garbage disposal would go on, simply because her mother “didn’t want to hear it”.
Glory knew there wasn’t much she could do. She needed her family’s help to take care of her young child. She needed them, so she could finally get both of her feet firmly planted on the ground and her life completely in order in such a way that she wouldn’t have to lean on them at all. She endured the abuse from her mother for much of her life. As far back as she could remember, her mother seemed to hate her. Despise her, was blatantly disgusted by the fact that she existed. It was a love/hate kind of thing. Glory tried everything she could to please her mother, but nothing she did seemed to matter. Her mother would support her efforts, but it didn’t seem she did it because she really wanted to. It felt to Glory she was doing it because she felt she had to. That if she didn’t and her eldest and most ambitious child did actually make something important out of her silly dreaming, HER reality would stick out like a sore thumb and make her look bad. So begrudgingly, she did what she could. Mostly in the form of helping Glory care for her daughter in the absence if the child’s father.
There were many years that all Glory wanted to do was run away. College wasn’t far enough. 3,000 miles away wasn’t far enough. Maybe a 24 hour flight would be far enough, she thought, as the tears habitually formed in her eyes after one of her mother’s episodes. But she couldn’t leave. Her circumstances rendered her stuck. She worked like a dog. One part of her brain on a paycheck and the other on her dream. She woke up earlier than anyone she knew to begin her day. She stayed up working, writing, toiling, visualizing until literally her body could take no more and collapsed.
Most days she was simply exhausted. There was so much she had to do, and so much more to be done. The only relief she got, was the 3 or so hours after work before she had to pick her daughter up after school. This thing with her mother–not ever knowing what would set her off, not ever being able to please her, never doing anything right and never getting an explanation for her attitude or anger, made Glory sick. She couldn’t keep her daughter around this mess. What kind of mother was she? What choice did she really have? Could she do all that she had to completely on her own? She had to make more money. She had to work harder. She had to endure until her time came finally. When that would be, Glory did not know.
The only thing that gave Glory a sliver of peace of mind was knowing her mother would never knowingly or willingly hurt her baby, but she felt the noose tightening around her neck. Her mother’s pettiness, jealousy, meanness and increasing need to control what was not meant for her to control. The dictator rearing her ugly head, looking to squeeze Glory out of the equation, because Glory had her own ideas on how to raise a girl child–removed of all the ways her mother failed with her.
Glory felt with every ounce of her being that her time was approaching rapidly. She felt in every bone in her body that her dependence on her family was quickly waning. That the tears she cried were becoming no more than vanity, a release she used to keep from boiling to the point of explosion.
The life she lived in past and present was not normal. The abuse she endured, even as an adult, was not normal. The person her mother had evolved from was not actually much better–she was the same woman Glory remembered who bruised her delicate skin anytime the drink she ingested told her to. She still had the scars both inside her skin and out. Everything was an issue. Everything was a problem. To her mother, Glory’s role in life was simply do as she was told and no more. The more Glory rebelled to have her own ideas, the more her mother attempted to beat them out of her. Pull her hair from their roots. Make her obey.
Unfortunately for Glory and her relationship with her mother, her will was too strong. But she was just a child. Too immature to understand why people chose their paths and why she had to drag herself with them down ugly roads with no rhyme or reason to the things she saw. Glory’s sadness became a plague to her until she found solace in prayer and meditation.
Her highest self showed her the truth. Gave her courage to stand up to the woman who tried desperately to oppress her, because Glory’s light, made her unreasonably uncomfortable. And now, Glory’s connection with her own child, made that woman burn on the inside because Glory–with all of her non-traditional choices–should not still be glowing. She should be dust by now. She should be a distant thought to all who knew her. But she simply wouldn’t let her triumphant spirit die. She kept going, kept evolving and kept being.
This escalated her mother’s anger. She didn’t know why, it just did. Her own life made her angry enough. Her constant boredom. But this girl she gave birth to, this woman with all her grand ideas and dreams, just set her off. Glory would ask her why she was upset and of course, she couldn’t say. It was just HER. The way she smiled about everything bad that happened to her. The way she refused to accept defeat. The way she viewed the world as though nothing could hurt her–even when things did hurt her.
She heard Glory crying those days and she turned on the garbage disposal so she didn’t have to hear what she’d done. It was really that simple. Glory needed to cry because she made her sick. She needed to suffer because she was suffering. She needed to smack that smile off her face and suck all the happiness out of that woman so she could go on with her own miserable life.
One day, Glory didn’t drop her daughter off at her parent’s house after school. There was somewhere else she had to go. She pressed the numbers at the gate and the ornate iron attached to the gray stone wall opened gingerly toward an elegant white house with a beautiful brown door. She pulled into the driveway and sat for a minute, breathing in the accomplishment she was facing. Home. Her home. Their home. A peaceful, stable home with no drama or erratic, silly control dramas threatening her state of being. Just love and encouragement. She was still a young, beautiful, fabulous single woman with a child, but now, her past had let her go. Now she created the tune for which her life beat on. Now, she was free.
Her entire life, she tried to change her mother’s behavior toward her. She tried to encourage her to be a better person, to see things the way she saw them–to see all the possibilities life held. To grab hold of the truth and create a life that would make her happy. Her mother–though in some respects got better–found more comfort in her own insecurity and bullshit. It was easier to blame everyone around her for her unhappiness, than to work toward it.
Glory finally realized that pleasing an un-pleasable person was futile. Trying to change somebody was paramount to trying to change the rain or the snow or the way water flows in currents. The best she could do for herself by way of change was to change herself. And so she did. And the fruit of that labor was nothing short of spectacular.
The tears began to well in her eyes as she looked at the beautiful brown door she was facing. It curved at the top and had lovely stone accents all around it like the fine French country home it was. She took the keys from the ignition and looked at the door key like it was the thing she had been waiting for her whole life. It glistened in the muted sunlight through her car window like she was holding the Hope Diamond. The ivory leather interior of her car, helped her and her daughter glide out into the brusque winter weather like royalty. She took her baby’s hand and walked up the gray stone pathway that led to the door. Once there, they stopped in awe and looked at it. She pressed her gloved hand against the wood grain. It was real. She put the key in the lock, turned it and pushed the door open. They walked in.
The foyer, where they stood, was so quiet, Glory couldn’t help but hear the voices of her ancestors ringing in her head. She looked around her, emotion pressing against her eyes. “They” spoke to her now as they had her whole life. They were the voices that reasoned with her to “keep on keeping on”, when she found herself wanting to give up. The voices that put wind beneath her wings when she was too afraid to fly. The voices that helped her find ways out of seemingly no ways. The voices that told her she could do it, when nobody else–not even her–thought she could. She let them all speak their peace. It sounded like music to her now. She lowered her head in gratitude to them and said simply, “Thank you”. Out loud.
Emotion of the moment had begun to overwhelm her as she looked about her empty new home. She already knew how she would furnish most of it. Other parts, she resolved, would come to her organically.
It was then, she saw a glimpse of the future. She saw her friends gathering in the kitchen having awesome discussion about current events and politics. She saw Thanksgiving dinners and smelled the artisan style goodies baking in the oven. She saw her daughter doing homework on school nights and their daily family dinners. She heard the sounds of the two practicing their French as they packed for their trip to Paris. She heard music in the air and watched the two dancing in the living room until they plopped to the ground laughing and exhausted.
There was even a man’s voice lingering in the air, although she couldn’t see clearly his broad shoulders or the features of his face. His presence was there… tall, strong, beautiful and full of the same love the house held for her.
The house they stood in now looked, smelled, sounded and felt like the love that had always been overflooded in her heart, but never had a consistent place to call home. It never had a place to overflow, and spill out onto the walls and floors and sit in the air like glitter dust. It was always thwarted somehow by somebody else’s ill sentiment toward her. A sentiment she couldn’t control nor change, no matter how much good she worked toward.
But all that was now a past she couldn’t go back to. She had endured and she stood looking around at what her hard work had created. It felt like a kiss from God. And surely, finally, the beauty all around her, matched the beauty that had always been inside of her. Finally, she had found her freedom. Finally, the ugly head was dead. At least to her.
~Finis~