I. Feel. Nothing.

My family and I have an estranged type of relationship. The only person I really communicate with is my mother. She’s the only one I really care about anyway with the exception of my beautiful almost teenage daughter. So imagine the unsettling feeling I had when I receiving the above email from my mother yesterday about my grandmother (her mother). A very small part of me wants to go visit her in the hospital.

But a bigger more like 99.5% of me feels absolutely nothing. I wish I could explain why this woman who had a large hand in raising me means nothing to me other than she’s my mother’s mother. I wish I could consciously feel the emotions I know I have toward this woman. I wish things could have been different between us because she is after all my grandmother. She gave birth to the woman who gave birth to me. But yet i. feel. nothing!

The last few years have literally been out of sight out of mind. Is that bad to say? Is it bad that I know I should feel something towards her since she’s family but I. Just. Can’t.

When I think of her, I don’t think of the good times that’s because I don’t remember any! we had together. I just get angry. Angry beyond what I can even explain right now. You would think that I would have let all that bullshit go but I haven’t. I find myself wondering if Papa were alive when I was a teenager or if I had not have been so damn emotional about everything she said could we have actually developed some sort of relationship.

Sigh I suppose it is too late for coulda woulda shoulda. All I can do is pray right now for her well being and peace of mind.

Thanks for reading…

The Southern Yankee

Day 8: Someone Who Made Your Life Hell, or Treated You Like Dirt

Throughout my lifetime, I have learned that I cannot make everyone like, love, tolerate, or befriend me. It is a fact of life that I wish more people would learn at an early age because once you get into the “real world” the mantra seems to be every man and woman for him or herself. Don’t get me wrong, there are people in the world who have genuine “Christ-like” hearts and souls that help people every day of their lives. Mother Theresa comes to mind as one such person. However, it seems that for every Mother Theresa like person, there is that one person who makes a point to find everything you do or say wrong. Nothing in this world would change their mind about you. I’ve never understood why this is but it happens and it has unfortunately happened to me with someone who supposedly cared a lot about me.

As stated in my Day 4 post, I grew up an only child. My mother’s only child. I was also the only grandchild in a family with five adult children. After all these years, I am still the only grandchild unless you count my daughter who was adopted by my mother’s sister and husband. Either which way, growing up I didn’t have anyone to share the brunt of the attention. I won’t lie, from newborn to about fifth grade; it was GREAT getting all the attention from my mother’s parents, sisters and brothers. I would be taken places, bought things and spoiled rotten. My Papa (pronounced paw paw) and I spent almost every waking moment together. If I was not in school or with my mom, I went with him. He was/still is what I would think a great father should be. According to my mother’s youngest sister, Papa was a hard ass and mean. I didn’t see it. I thought he was the greatest and wanted to be near him always.

Too bad I cannot say the same for my relationship with my maternal grandmother. Part of me used to think, she might have been jealous of my relationship with Papa because I hardly wanted to spend time with her. See Papa died when I was twelve. My mother and I had only been in Texas for nine years. Nine years of being able to spend morning, noon and night with the father I had ever known. Nine years of going out to the pasture to tend to the cattle and land, to the corner store in town for a quarter cup of coffee and to Sunday School with him and my great-great Uncle Jim. Nine years may seem like a long time, but it really wasn’t especially to a child.

If I remember right, things between grandma and I became complicated when I was in sixth grade right before Papa passed away. Papa had been in and out of the hospital for months. On the weekends and sometimes during the week, I would go visit him with whichever family member was going. Well when we would return home, it would be uber late which meant I would not get enough sleep to stay awake at school the next morning. I remember repeatedly falling asleep and bringing home less than normal grades in my Social Studies class. I think my teacher understood what was going on but my grandmother and mother’s youngest sister didn’t. I remember being called over to my grandmother’s house one night to talk to my aunt on the phone. Apparently grandma told her about my grades and she [my aunt] proceeded to cuss me out to high hell. I was twelve or thirteen then. Did I deserve it? Not to that extent. As I sit and think about it, I can still hear my aunt yelling at the top of her lungs through the phone. I can still see my grandmother sitting on her bed just letting it all happen knowing damn well it wasn’t right.

From that moment on, I really didn’t trust my grandmother. How could I trust someone who seemed to do everything possible to make me feel like I was the bottom of the bottom? Everything I did and/or said was literally under the magnifying glass. And no matter how crafty I got at hiding things from her, she somehow managed to find out about it. I may sound like a brat right now but the emotions felt when I was teenager and even through my junior year of college were absolutely real. How does one assume something about another person and not even ask if it is true? Why would anyone go completely out of their way to make sure another person is miserable? I wish I could say that despite all of her hurtful words and emotional torment I loved my grandmother but the truth is I don’t feel anything for her. She is my mother’s mother and I will always be respect of her; however, anything past that, I cannot do.

Thanks for reading…

The Southern Yankee

Day 4: Something You Have to Forgive Someone For

Remember when I said this in my last post?

“Now I am not an advocate of spending your entire life mad at someone.

Truth be told, I don’t hold grudges.

Often.

For very long.

Okay so I do. Sue me! pero not for reals because you not gon get anything but a penny LOL.”

Well Day 4’s topic is Something You Have to Forgive Someone For. SMH this isn’t going to be fun.

For the most part, I really don’t hold grudges or stay mad for a long period of time nor do I hold shit over people’s heads. I realized several years ago being pissed at someone doesn’t help me or the other person. Besides life is too damn short to focus all my energy on whatever pissed me off in the first place. I learned that you can either forgive and forget or just forgive and hope to God that the person who wronged you doesn’t fuck up again.

Screw me one – shame on you

Screw me twice – shame on me

Screw me three times and you’re asking for a world of hurt and anguish!

I’m just sayin

I grew up an only child. I didn’t find out I had brothers until I believe I was in junior high or high school. My oldest brother is I believe four years older than me. My step brother is a year and four months and my baby brother is approximately eight years and five months younger than me. Our mothers’ ex-husband was a hoe! Not a whore because if that were true we’d have a dozen more siblings. Latimers are by far not an infertile family!

My mother divorced her ex-husband the year I turned three.  The month before my third birthday my mother and I moved to Texas. For the first nine years, we lived with my grandparents. When I was in 4^th or 5^th grade, Mom and I moved “next door” to our very own house. I remember after we moved I would have dreams about Tutu (look I refuse to call him father or dad my blog my prerogative) almost weekly. Sometimes I would wake up crying. Sometimes I would wake angry. I would question my mother why he wasn’t around. What did I do to deserve this? She did her best to comfort me but nothing she did or said was ever enough. I wanted and needed answers from HIM. But he would never grant me the satisfaction of talking face to face coherently. In my ENTIRE life, I have seen the man maybe five times. Five times!!! See I got the shit end of the stick because my mother and I moved to Texas. If given the choice, I wouldn’t have moved here. I would have opted for living with family in California. At least then, I would have grown up around my older brother and developed some sort of relationship with Tutu. Makes logical sense, right?! Not so much.

Growing up, I blamed Tutu for everything that happened or didn’t happen. I blamed him for my mom having to struggle to raise me and finance my education at Baylor. I hated him more than anything for having other child and being happy with someone other than my mother. Did my mother deserve to be happy? Didn’t she deserve to have a life outside of a single mom? Didn’t I deserve to be a happy kid?

It took a really long time for me realize my parent’s divorce was NOT my fault nor did it have anything to do with me. My mother divorced him because he was and probably still is an alcoholic and drug addict. I was told he was so strung out once that he sold our TV so he could get high. What a shining example of a “father” right?

I don’t know what my or brothers’ lives would have been like if Tutu had been something more than just a sperm donor nor do I want to anymore. I grew up a few years ago and came to the conclusion that I had a few really great father figures in my life. These gentlemen were there for my mom and me more than Tutu probably ever wanted to be. So I forgave him. Yes just like that. As I said before, I cannot spend my whole life angry because it doesn’t benefit me or Tutu. Perhaps one day we’ll speak again but until then I am content living my life without him.

Thanks for reading…

The Southern Yankee