Unspoken words

I was composing so many letters and posts in my head last night. Had a night sweat, a coughing fit or two, and a really bad earache from 3:30 onwards. Then I worried about my son, who has a blinding headache that won't go away. Then I worried about my daughter because I can see that I have turned into my mother. Then I fretted about my stepmother, who was rude to me on the phone on Sunday. As I tossed and turned, I thought about writing to her and saying just what I think. I won't though.

It's amazing how bleak the world seems when you're in pain and on your own. Hubby had to go back to London last night. He wouldn't have been able to help much anyway. I'll take my son to the dr. today.

I don't know how to change out of being my mother though. I can feel her channeling through me sometimes. And still my daughter is actually a level-headed, kind-hearted person in spite of my neuroses. It's all to do with friends and insecurity -- mine, not my daughter's. I think it all started with my grandmother. Her father died -- allegedly of sunstroke, but why was he in a state hospital then? -- when she was a girl. Her mother had to do all manner of jobs to keep food on the table for her three very young children. My grandmother as the eldest was expected to look after the younger two. Now Grandma didn't grow into much of a beauty. That was her sister. But she was a good God-fearing woman with some brains so she became a school teacher. My grandfather and she were in their 30s when they married and had a son very soon. He was the light of her life (he's now dying of cancer in a nursing home because Medicare would only pay for one week in the hospice. Disgraceful!!!). Then she got pregnant again three years later with twins. It was all too much for Grandma so her mother moved in to help her, and pretty much stayed there till she died many years later. The twins grew up into good-looking, insecure, neurotic women. And still are today.

And that insecurity and neuroticism (is that a word?) has been passed down to the next generation. I'm doing my best not to pass it on again, but I fail over and over. I always felt like my mother and I changed roles when I became a teen-ager. I can understand now why my mother wanted to hand over the adult reins, but as grown up as I looked and acted then and my daughter does now, teen-agers are still children with so very many needs. Sometimes I want to ask my daughter if I'm as bad as my mother was. But what if she says yes? Maybe it's better not to ask.