Worse

Every time I think my relationship with my mom is at rock bottom I found out it can get worse.  I haven't spoke to my mom since 2005. I haven't seen her since she remarried in 2002 which I can truly say was the second worse day of my life, the first being the day my dad died.  The last several years I've see-sawed between numb and anger towards her.  Part of me feels like I grieved the loss of my mom back in 2002.  Occasionally something will come up that makes me feel like I miss having a relationship with her.  I also will still on occasion have dreams about her in which she is usually being horrible to me, screaming at me, name calling, hitting me.  Often though the numbness is more common and has even before left me feeling like there is something wrong with me that her behavior doesn't bother me more. 

I know my sister has been struggling a lot the last year or so with how mom is treating her.  I know my sister has tried to win her over or please her in various manners, some of which I didn't approve but I do understand feeling like you need your mom and trying to win her back. Goodness knows I've tried in the past myself.  My sister told me a while ago that mom had given her all of the old family photo albums.  She expressed concern that something was wrong with mom or that she was dying.  Strangely my first thought was she was removing all the little left over bits of us from her life by getting rid of all the old photos. 

Today my sister called my mom to once again attempt to connect with her and mom confirmed my suspicions.  Mom told my sister she didn't ever want to hear from us again.  That after February she is moving to somewhere we won't be able to contact her.  Mom of course plays the victim and it's all our fault.  Her children which she gave everything for have abandoned her.  My sister admitted that at one point she called mom and told her she wanted to die and that mom hung up on her. Today I guess she brought up the fact that I was suicidal.  Hmmm... Not anymore thanks and I don't see how that is relevant now.  At one point in my life, yes I was.  However when I finally decide to stop letting my mom's opinion validate my self worth and decide to work on not being so focused on making everyone around me happy things improved.  That plus medicating my medical condition (mom never felt I should be taking medication because God of course should be more than enough) and my depression is pretty well managed.  My poor sister begged our mom to be part of her life again and mom basically hung up on her again.

This breaks my heart, mostly for my sister.  I know this is emotionally devastating to her. I'm so angry all I want to do is send my mom a letter telling her exactly how I feel about her right now throwing in a great number of things with the intent of hurting her. I wish I could help my sister see that this says more about mom as a mother than it says about us as daughters.  This has left me feeling irritable and angry all day.  It's just so wrong on so many levels. 

More pictures

So I've had some requests for pictures.  I forget that what I share on FB isn't necessarily seen by my few readers here. So I don't have many as for some reason I haven't been taking many but here are a few I have taken.

This is just down the road from my house, I was walking along the boardwalk in the evening. Interesting tidbit is in Santa Barbara the sun doesn't set over the ocean as we are a south facing beach. So the sun sets behind the Mesa but it still makes for a pretty sunset.

This was taken from the pier the same night. We have a pier with some little beachy shops and several places to eat. Of course you pay for the view but it's still nice once in a while for a treat. 

This was just across from my house. I've seen them landing on the beach a lot lately and actually went over and talked to them about learning to hang glide.

This is Sara looking out the windows in my living room.  I have corner windows which I LOVE! You can also see a bit of what my view is. The ocean is just on the other side of the Palm trees.  There is a baseball field right across the street. However I can sit on my couch and see the ocean which is more than I ever hoped I'd be able to do. 

Here are my three goofy girls hogging my spot on the couch. But not touching.  Sara the white cat is my old lady at 9.5 years. Annabelle the darker Siamese looking one is my jealous middle child. She likes the other two fine until it comes to sharing me with them and then she's a bit of a diva princess. Cleo the calico is my newest baby who is about 6.5 months old. I got her in July and don't know if I've mentioned her here before. Considering how most places in SB say no pets I feel incredibly lucky to have found such a great apartment in such a nice location with three cats. 

Just for fun here's a picture of my multicolored hand. It's doing better since I had it pinned but is still pretty tender. Hoping it's better soon though so I can get back to work.