towel officially thrown in

so it's common knowledge that my mom and i have issues. we've never had that close relationship i've often wised we've had. high school was a nightmare of screaming most of the time. college came and she actually had a party when i moved on campus 3 hours away.

after that things got better, distance helped. then things got rocky again with the 5 year horrible relationship i had. but even then she was there for me when i needed her, i was very lucky. when i finally decided i needed to escape and leave the state of ct, i quit my job and moved back home with them for 6 mos. i worked several menial jobs to try to keep myself busy and also keep paying my bills while i figured it all out. living in close quarters again was trying. especially since i had been through some really unspeakable things that she preferred to never know about. ok, fine, no big deal. i wasn't in the shape to talk anyway. and also? we never had that relationship with each other.

then i got a job offer from my old employer in ann arbor (ironically i had originally come out to michigan the first time for the disaster of a relationship, but no need to go into that now). i had some mixed feelings about coming back out here since some pretty awful things had happened out here too. but i needed the escape, the distance, the chance to start over.

so i came. alone. all i could pack into my car and lived in a hotel for a few months with basically nothing. my mother, the real estate investor, bought a small condo for me to live in (another story for another time) and soon after i moved in i met alex, purely by chance.

i had no way to know that he was going to end up being my husband. at that time i could scarcely fathom it.

but that's the way we headed and my mom loved him, of course. who doesn't?

as the wedding approached we seemed to be getting along quite well, my mom and i. my dad always just kind of goes with the flow. my mom definitely runs the show.

after the wedding she told me she had had a bad time, for reasons that aren't even worth getting into. it hurt me, a lot. comments she made to my friends and others found their way back to me and i was pretty devastated. more that she would act the way she did.

christmas last year was rough. too much to go into but we went to meet them in vegas at their request and it was a complete disaster. my parents haven't spoken to me since. (i know i'm not going into detail but i did nothing wrong here and i STILL have no idea why she was so angry).

a few months after she left me a voicemail asking why i was mad at her. i took the opportunity to write out all my feelings regarding the wedding, vegas and everything since. i was very careful not to place blame, acknowledge any part in i had and ask that we talk things out that i was tired of this sort of pattern in our relationship. no, this wasn't the first time she had gone long stretched without speaking to me.

i never got a response to that letter. which was pretty sad. but i was okay leaving things the way they were.

enter monkey. i had to figure out how i wanted to share the news with my parents. we decided to buy them gifts and mail them out to them. as we were at the ups store alex said to me "you know she's going to call you and you have to just pretend like nothing had happened" and i knew he was right. and i was ok with that.

he package was scheduled to arrive on a friday. in the meantime she had emailed alex about some other items (oh yeah, she still emails him, calls him on his birthday... while i didn't even rate an email or ecard. yes, i sent them birthday cards, mother's/father's day things, etc...) and in his response he mentioned to her that we had set them gifts and that they should open them together. her response was very negative about me how "no way i could have sent her a gift."

ok, fine.

so friday came. and saturday. and sunday. nothing. no call, email, nada. my little brother, who lives with them didn't know the news. we shared it with his sunday. he was excited and intrigued that they had not said anything to him about the package. finally he asked them what was in the package that had arrived on friday. my mother's response? "i put it in the closet. i have no intention of even opening anything from 'her.'"

seriously.

now my problem with this wasn't the absurdity. i mean, that's her choice. my problem was that they still didn't KNOW. and if they knew and close to ignore it that was one thing. you know?

so i debated what to do. i really didn't want to call her, i'll be honest. but i opted to call my dad at work. i got his voicemail and left him a message asking him to call me. generally my dad keeps neutral in whatever is going on and i can usually talk to him. he never called me back.

that was new, and it hurt.

finally after we got the second ultrasound picture, i emailed it both of them with a subject line of "your grandchild" in case they didn't read it, and a short note. signed it from both of us and waited. that was 3 days ago.

today, alex (why not me?) gets an email from my mother that says "gordon and i are happy for you."

that was it. we both think that is the last we'll hear from them.

all i wanted was for them to know and make their choice. and they've made it.

i'm done trying.