I Believe I Can Fly

I hesitate to listen to the voicemail. I know it is going to be explosive and wretched to listen to.

How very clever Mom has become.

She'd sent one more text to me after my last, and I'd sent a message back -- tricking her into thinking that I'd blocked her on my phone, because when you block someone they are not notified. I want her to KNOW that she is blocked (even if she has no idea what that entails, technically. It just sounds good. "You have been blocked." It should be accompanied by the sound of a door slamming.)

I'd gotten her little quip and had replied Your message has been blocked by this recipient and can not be seen. ATT Msg #7784 And then I actually blocked her.

Official looking enough. And Mom being clever, but not exactly a techowizard, fell for it. Hence, a voicemail to my land line date stamped moments after the message I'd sent about being blocked. I can just hear her saying through gritted teeth, "You think you are so smart? I'll show you!" and gleefully dialing my number and formulating her pissy little rant in her head.

I decide not to let the voicemail just fester like a rotting egg in my phone. I pick up the receiver, dial into the system and patiently scroll through all the sales pitches and political calls and other nuisance messages I have deftly avoided until now. Wouldn't it have been poetic justice if my voicemail had been full? You'd have heard her head flying into a million jagged shards from here.

In a voice only horror movie producers dream of, she rants.

More insults. More commentary on my character. More nastiness in general. And again, she floats the notion that I was high on something.

Well Mom, the sound of your voice does suck all the oxygen from my brain. I suppose I am high. Sort of. In a most unpleasant, painful, please-let-this-kill-me quickly kind of way.

I am a disappointment. She's ashamed of me. I am selfish. I have turned into a witch.

Statements few mothers make to their children and even fewer actually mean.

But Mom is cut from a different crop of mothers. Thankfully a small, wilted crop from which very few survive. No interest in doing anything remotely motherly. Yet demanding of the honors and privileges and rewards that are the hallmarks of motherhood.

Let someone else honor her. Let someone else say they owe it all to their mother. Let someone else credit their mother with laying the foundation for their remarkable life.

My remarkable life, with all its adventures, and misadventures, and blessings, and disasters, and chaos and comedy, is mine to own. And mine to take credit for. If there is anyone I can say helped pour the foundation, it was Dad. And if there was anyone whose wings beat strongly enough to keep me afloat when surely I'd otherwise crash, it is Charlotte. Mom not only doesn't get top billing. She is absent from the scroll of credits entirely. The other supporting actors and actresses are my friends. They are the ensemble cast in my lively, worthwhile life.

And as I hold the phone in my hand, wondering why I even keep a land line at all, I also wonder why I allow my mother in my life at all. She clearly gets nothing she wants or needs from me, no matter what I do or what I achieve or what I accept. And it is patently clear that there is nothing to gain on my end, or my children's either. I don't need her approval. Dad thought I was great. I don't even care what she thinks.

So, my choice is, I can continue this chaotic, disturbing relationship, or I can let it fall from my hands. To hold on is to accept it. To let go is to finally say, "No more." I can let go, or be dragged.

I let go.

And I lace up. Dress in my shorts and sports tank and head to the woods for a long hike, alone with Mother Nature.

I believe I can fly. The weight of nearly 50 years has been lifted from my shoulders.