It started at a young age, 12. I grew up as an only child until that prepubescent age right before the teens begin. My mother was told she couldn’t have anymore children and lo and behold my dad had some pretty kick ass swimmers, so she became pregnant at the age of 43. I really didn’t care one way or the other, as I didn’t feel it would change my life at all. The pregnancy was tough on my mother, because she was older. She lost all of her teeth and had implants done after my brother was born. When she came home from the hospital with him, I thought he was kind of cute, but that wore off quickly when he woke me from slumber at all hours of the night, cutting short my dreams about my newest crush. Within weeks, I was changing diapers, feeding and burping him, and rocking him to sleep at night. My parents gushed about how cute I was, like a miniature mommy. It was at that time I decided I never wanted to have children.
With twelve years between us, there wasn’t much chance of a deep bonding between siblings. I was more like an ersatz mom. Life changed dramatically as we moved to Livorno, Italy, not long after he was born. I’d already spent the first twelve impressionable years of my life with no real connection to family outside of my parents. I clung to the minimally normal family life I had. My parents barely spoke, my mom cooked, cleaned, cleaned, cleaned, (yeah to excess), worked a full day, ran errands, and basically fulfilled the 1950′s version of the female persona. She barely had time for my brother, so I was given the responsibility of entertaining him. I can admit now, all these years later, I had such deep animosity toward that little boy, that at times I hated him. Little did I know, we were both victims of a set of parents too busy with everything but nurturing us, and a father that didn’t hesitate to kick my ass to prove a point. I was held responsible for anything my brother did “wrong.” I had no social life, or chance to get involved in after shcool activities, and hanging with my friends was limited to the weekends when my mom didn’ t have to work. More animosity built up. It is one my life’s deepest regrets, not having him as part of my life, because we share the same blood, the same DNA, we are bound by things much deeper and stronger than a selfish bastard that walked out of both of our lives between the legs of another woman. He caused irreperable destruction to me, my brother, and my mother. And yet, I call him my father…
Of course all of these years later, though I don’t know my brother at all, he lives in Germany, I realize we were both victims of some bizarre need for my father to have a son. Though I spent the better part of my childhood being injected with how to be a male, I just didn’t have the equipment to carry on the name. That was very important to my father. Irony…he and brother have no relationship and though my brother has a son, my father doesn’t know him either. Karma can be a bitch.
The reason for this trip back through memory lane, is because it was the beginning of determining who I became until about three weeks ago. The mother, the nurturer, the protector, the womb to propagate life, the caretaker, and above all else, the denier of anything outside of that. Without the daily struggle to provide for my children, I became an empty shell with no idea of what to do to feel like there was any value to my being. I entered a void, a vortex that has spun out of control and is eating me alive and worrying me to death. Who am I now? What is my purpose? Is there a value to me outside of being a mother? Will I spend the rest of my life alone? It’s hell. It’s fucking hell and yet as has been the case since the age of seven, I still cannot shed a single tear. The one thing that definitely stuck with me from the bowels of my fathers controlling mouth is, “Don’t cry, it’s a sign of weakness. Once you start, you can’t stop and it will destroy you.”
The identity I spoke of earlier, the mother, is the one that now eludes me on the level it has been since the age of twelve, and has me standing outside of myself for the first time in this life, looking in and wondering, why does it feel like this is the end? If you have the guts, step on the train and ride through this journey with me. I’m going to prove that “EMPTY NEST SYNDROME” is very, very real, and devastating to the psyche that society has created for women.
P.S. I love you Junior…
Stay Tuned…
