Mommy Dearest is DEAD

Man has it been awhile…Haven’t had much to say I suppose. I’ve got something on my mind and nobody in particular to dump on so..here ya go. I’m on my way to Colorado tomorrow morning. My dad, step mom, and lil’ brother live there. Throughout my growing up I didn’t live with my dad. I got to see him every summer for a few months and more often when he lived closer to me. My dad and I have a fantastic relationship, pretty much always have. Now, my step mom is a different story. We’ve always had a very strange relationship. Up and down, good and bad, snotty and extremely close. I have no idea when it started. She’s always been in my life; my parent’s divorced when I was a baby, so I didn’t know any different. I don’t remember our relationship being any other way. It’s just the way it was…I was always taking baby steps with her. I never knew what her attitude would be towards me. Whether she was going to be bitchy, loving or reign sneaky insults down on me. As a girl, I cried a lot. I hated her at times. She is very sly about it to. She will say things as a ‘joke’ about how big my ass is. To a 13 year old that is devastating. At other times we were like bubbly little girlfriends, giggling and laughing. Then out of nowhere, she would make up crap and tell my dad, in hopes of pissing him off. She’s told my friends; I was no good and would eventually hurt them. Luckily, after a time I caught on and warned them, saving myself that chaos. Needless to say, when I went to visit, I tried to spend ALL of my time with my dad. Every few years or so we would have a long talk, usually after a fight and my dad telling me how much she loves me and basically asking me to work it out. One particular time she told me that her and her girlfriends would talk about how lazy I was cause I didn’t help out in the kitchen after dinner. I sat with my dad in the living room instead. This information sticks out to me because I had no idea I was the topic of their conversation. After that I’d notice a few condescending glances from the ‘girlfriends.’ Anyway, we would have a long talk, I’d give it a shot, make an effort, help out in the kitchen, and eventually she would shit on me. This cycle has gone on for years. I keep putting myself in a position to get hurt, over and over again. I don’t know how it happens because at first I am very cautious with her. I’m guarded…but somewhere along the line, I let the guard down and I really start to feel we have a bond. And she does something either, just plain mean or so insensitive I wonder who it is I’ve been talking to. She would me believe she truly loved me and enjoyed me. As you’ve probably gathered this spiral has began again recently. The first in a long time. We took drinking out of our arguments years ago and they’ve become less frequent, actually non-existent. Our last talk was especially deep going back to my childhood and some issues we both have had. Things that may have been at the core of our troubles. We vowed to talk things out and ask questions instead of assume anything. Well, the baby steps lead way to a fairly open slate on my part. I would call her because I genuinely wanted to talk to her not out of obligation. After years of strife we fondly began to refer to her as mommy dearest. She hates ‘step mom’ and I won’t call her mom, so in our strange little world this was progress. This was poking fun at our topsy tervy relationship, and has become a term of endearment between the two of us. Well the most recent issue is this, and I won’t elaborate on it to much. It’s in stages. When I was trying on wedding dresses, all the important women in my life had gone with me at one time or the other so I told her this experience would be complete it she could go. She got so excited, she told her boss she needed a few days because her daughter was getting married and she wanted to go dress shopping. So we made tentative plans, she was supposed to call me. I called her the day she was suppose to arrive and my dad said her plane should have already landed. She didn’t even tell. She decided to have her nephew who lives 3 hours away pick her up. I live 5 minutes. Fine. She called me the next evening. I asked her why she didn’t call, she said she planned on spending the last half with me and ‘lets set a time to meet’. So we did, but she kept canceling. She ended up staying with me LESS then a day. This is after I started crying and telling her how disappointed I was she kept postponing. I told her I promised to speak my mind and this is how I feel. I thought she WANTED to go with me, hang out, be a part of.
So, let that go. Fast forward to wedding trip. She didn’t have the right documentation to board the plane so she didn’t get to go. We cried about it. I missed her there. Fast forward to the in-town reception. Her nephew was having his reception the weekend before mine; she couldn’t get off work for that amount of time so regretfully she would miss mine. I completely understand. She was so upset that she wasn’t going to be there. Well, my dad and brother drove down for the occasion. I mentioned how she must be really bummed that she had to work…I was told she took the week off and went to Wyoming. Just to hang out, have fun. I can’t explain how hurt I was. She CHOSE not to come. She made a decision not to spend this time with her ‘daughter.’ She hasn’t even asked me how things went, let alone acknowledge any wrong doing. She hasn’t called, which if everything was ‘normal’ would be the case. I was shocked and so mad at myself for letting this happen again! How in the world can I be so gullible? Am I miss reading her? Whatever! I am just trying to just let this be. I don’t want to have a heart to heart with her…I’m tired of it. She’s my dad’s wife, and my brother’s mom so I have to have some kind of relationship with her…but what! I don’t like her; I never really have without putting forth a lot of effort. I don’t want to act like I do, but I don’t want to be a bitch either. I am resentful that she ‘played’ me or whatever you call it. I am hurt that she obviously doesn’t think of me as a daughter…how could she miss it when there was really no effort on her part? All she had to do was climb in the fucking car! I don’t want to be hurt! I don’t want to give a shit! I also want to slap the bitch right off her face! Mostly, I want to not care, to be fine with whatever. While on this trip, if she asks me to go somewhere, I want to be honest. Not say no because I’m being a bitch, to go if I want or not to. She’s going to be especially attentive to me, acting like everything is great. (This is usually where I say something to her and we talk or fight cause I can’t pretend everything is peachy!)Oh and yes, she will be sweet, the nice will be out and kick’n!! She knows my husband has heard my side, she’ll want him to think I’m crazy.”She’s so sweet, how can you be upset”. OHH she’s the devil! Anyway Thanks for letting me vent. Mommy Dearest is forever dead to me! But who is taking her place? I just don’t know how to act. I don’t know how to change this cycle.