Had my mother lived, today she’d be 80 years old. This is a most unusual tribute to her, because it is about how our relationship shaped me.. in some not very pretty ways. But it does have a happy ending.

See, my mother was that woman.

The woman that put the purse on top of her car, and then drove off. Who left the keys in the ignition and locked all the doors.. with her standing outside the car. Who dumped a bucket of black paint on her head.

It would be funny, and it is.. to a point. It would be funnier if it wasn’t so effing tragic.

My mother suffered intense anxiety when I was little, and my parents separated when I was 4 years old. To add to her usual flakiness, she became downright unreliable and emotionally unavailable. I was just a wee babe -- a fixed earth sign to boot -- in need of safety and security.

I didn’t want to be left behind at school because she forgot to pick me up; nor did I want to have to be sure she brought her wallet with her to the store, so we wouldn’t have to abandon a cart full of groceries at the cash register. As a little psychic sponge, I felt my mother’s intense anxiety, and I wanted to fix it. But here’s the thing: I was a little kid. Little kids should never have to worry a single moment into the future. They shouldn’t fear being left behind, and they shouldn’t be keeping track of their mother’s car keys or shopping list or wallet to prevent any future misplacement or catastrophe. They shouldn’t be overly concerned with the minutae of what tomorrow might bring. But I was. I did. And I never stopped.

Throughout my life, people who loved me or didn’t repeated these words again and again:

“Why can’t you just let it go?”
“Why worry about something you can’t control? That may not even happen!”
“Why can’t you just go with the flow?”
“You are such a nag!”
“Stop trying to control everything! It has nothing to do with you!”

My coping mechanism to feel safe, was to be in control. I never stopped looking ahead, seeing details and foreseeing problems where there may or may not be problems. Making contingency plans, sticking my nose in, even where it didn’t concern me, because it bothered me to see a potential future problem and not alert someone to it. I took on everyone else’s problems in addition to my own. I didn’t know how not to.. I had been doing it for as long as I could remember.

When I was 13, control was not eating. (If I ate, I might throw up, and that would be the ultimate lack of control).

When I was 14, control was not leaving the house. (Bad things might happen if I left the house).

No wonder my shoulders ache. No wonder I have gray hair. No wonder I’ve struggled with autoimmune and stress disorders. My body is finally catching up with me, a little miniature Atlas, who simply didn’t even know she was carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders. She thought it was normal.

Now I’m 36 years old.. and standing in Target,  the full weight of what I’d been doing all these years hit me. The realization of this constant push-pull, control, morph, manipulate, wish, hope, rail, keep it together, keeping on the safe side... I felt sheer exhaustion. My shoulders dropped and tears filled my eyes and there was every possibility I would just fall over right there in the store, except that the part of me that knows how to control things got me out of there before I really caved into my feelings.

Still.. the realization and knowing brought me to my knees, caused me to surrender, even knowing I am going to have to keep surrendering every moment from now until my last breath. The Serenity prayer came to me, then:

                                        God grant me the serenity
                                to accept the things I cannot change;
                                courage to change the things I can;
                                and wisdom to know the difference.

A funny thing, too. It took me years and years to see my childhood for what it was. Because who was I to say my childhood was frightening and messed up, when no one in my family was an addict or a alcoholic? Who was I to say my childhood damaged me when no one got slapped around? Add to that the fact that I was known among family as the baby, the spoiled brat. My mother did things for me I should have been doing for myself, and I never wanted for much of anything material. How on earth could I be a spoiled brat, while spending a good portion of my energy parenting my parent?

I now see that one was a product of the other. I was so furious at not having a parent I could rely on. I wailed, manipulated, did whatever I could to get what I wanted. What I needed was for my mother to be my parent, and to let me off the hook. But since I could not get that , I would settle for getting other things I wanted. I learned that I could not get what I needed, but I could manage to get what I wanted if I whined loudly enough. Our co-dependency meant the price mom paid for not giving me what I needed was giving me all sorts of things I didn’t.

This pattern has followed me into my own life in my relationship with myself; I’m so quick to soothe my fears and aches and hungers with what I want, rather than what I need. The chocolate milk instead of the vegetables. The bill needs to get paid, but instead I buy a soda and a magazine. A new pair of jeans instead of money saved so I can get to the dentist. Short-term high chosen over long-term gain.

This is not about blaming my mother: she was a remarkable woman doing the best she could under very trying circumstances. She had been a stay-at-home-mom, but when my parents separated, she had to go back to work in order to make ends meet. She had 2-3 jobs at a time, and I know despite all best intentions, I got shuffled around to neighbors and friends and relatives until I was old enough to be home alone. She was under enormous stress, her friendships suffered, and she lost her mother, only sister, and a beloved aunt, all in less than a decade.

I keep hearing that there is no point in rehashing your childhood or bringing painful things to light. The belief is, if you play the “parents screwed me up” card, you’re going to use your shiny new insight as an excuse to be effed up for the rest of your days.

Some people do that. It’s easy to hang on to blame and to stay a victim, especially when you’ve only just discovered you’re a victim. Ooh shiny! Novelty! I just realized I am screwed up in a whole new way!

That’s not what I’m about, and that’s no way to harvest a future better than my past. I believe we can bring our shames, our pains, our sadness to light to be transformed and healed.

Under the full light of the sun, we gather the hurts, the misunderstandings and losses, and, as we walk away, we can set fire to the field behind us, and begin anew. What burns away are the dead things; and the purifying fire releases nutrients into the soil which will support the new growth in your life.

And here’s the happy ending:

After weeks of rehashing my past and crying over Kelly Clarkson’s “Because of You” and probing my sisters for memories of my childhood, I had a dream.

In the dream I was an adult, but my mother was supporting me financially and we lived together in an apartment.One day, I discovered my mother had taken the money that was meant for rent, and tucked it away for herself. We got evicted.

I lost everything; all my stuff but what fit into a duffel bag, and my two cats. I confronted her in the parking lot in front of all the neighbors, and she said:

“I did it for you.”

Angry and sitting alone in a hotel room with a little radio and what was left in my duffel bag, I suddenly realized I was free. I had no baggage; no attachment to anywhere or anything. I could start over.

In that dream my mother gave me something I desperately needed to close this chapter and move on into the rest of my life, strengthened, not desperately damaged:

She gave me my power back.

My mother’s been gone for almost 8 years, and she continues to amaze me.