oops, shot my wad

[this post has been edited since last night]

I seem to have accidentally absolved my mother of all her past mistakes.

Damn it, I meant to keep that ace in the hole, just in case I ever wanted to really let loose on her—really make her suffer, make her pay—tell her about all the times she hurt me and how sad and lonely and angry I've been.

But I blew it all in an email this morning. I swear, it was an accident—I was actually just trying to soften something hard that I said.* I didn't even realize what I'd done until she wrote back full of gratitude and emotion.

At first I was alarmed and confused. But these emotions subsided as several things dawned on me.

First, I realized that the statute of limitations on that "ace in the hole" is definitely running out.

In other words, if I have something I want to say to her, that I want her to understand, I better make it quick.

Cuz if I had had anything to say to Dad, it would already too late.

At these sobering thoughts, all that "old stuff" started to seem less important. That's not it, exactly—it's important, because it made me who I am. But it doesn't seem so important that I somehow "make Mom sorry for what she did."

Partly because it's just pointless. It's not like I can trade in all those old scars for a big shiny prize or a perfect childhood. That's why I haven't said anything up to now—there's no real reason to make her suffer.

But there's more to it now, and that's the other thing I realized.

Her grateful answer illuminated ten years' worth of comments and asides, and I saw that she's already sorry for what she did—she's been sorry. She doesn't know quite what it was, but she knows something wasn't right, and it makes her sad.

I didn't need to store up all that stuff in case one day I wanted to make her suffer. She's been suffering. And I just helped her feel better.

This makes my head spin.

But ultimately even though I feel sad, and like I've lost something (were those grudges so much a part of me?), I also feel a softening toward her.

I don't know if it's because I feel like the debt is paid, like we're even now because she's been sad too...

...or if I just see that however much it hurt me, her problem hurts her more. At least I had the ability to learn to connect with others. She'll always be inside the four walls of her head, looking out & knowing that other people have something she doesn't.

Somehow it doesn't seem to matter so much whether I still hurt or not. That's my problem and I'll be sorting out for the rest of my life, maybe. But there's no reason she should suffer too.

So I responded to her response—she said I was perceptive and a good person—by saying that if I am either of these, it's because of the example set by her and Dad. I said that so many people don't even try to be a good person, and she tries every day.

That was the nicest thing I could honestly say (she'll totally miss the fact that there are nicer things that one could say about someone) and I think it will have the intended effect.

I don't exactly feel better. Actually, I feel sort of alone and "all grown up." My visual for this is that it's like Mom and I were carrying something heavy, and I took it from her and said, "Okay, I'll carry that now, you can rest." And she sat down gratefully and sort of faded away. And here I am with the heavy thing.

But I'm glad I did that. She needs to rest. It's time to let her go.

---

* What I was actually saying at the time was that Dad's situation triggers my memories of how she failed to protect me from harm when I was helpless and dependent as Dad is now—referring to how I was molested by a friend of theirs. (I was angry because Dad had another mini-stroke and she didn't take him to the ER.) To soften this bombshell—or what would have been a bombshell to a normal person—I talked about her "blind spot" (referring to the Aspergers stuff) and said it wasn't her fault, and that I'd "accepted and made peace with" it. I think all she heard was the stuff about her personally. So ironically, but not surprisingly, my accusation turned into an absolution.

After all this time I still keep expecting her to be different, to "get" what happened to me. She never will.