My biggest fear is becoming my Mother, that sounds really harsh doesn't it? Let me tell you a little bit about my mother and I'll let you make up your own mind.
My mother was really young when I was born, 15 in fact (she fell pregnant at 14). Two and a a halfs years later came No1 sister. Then my mum and dad divorced when I was about 6ish my mum had two more children with her second husband, my brother is 8 years younger then me and No2 sister is 10 years younger then me.
Not long after No2 sister was born, my mother left us. She went to work and didn't come back for 6 months. To start with my and No1 sister were sent to live with her parents and my brother and No2 sister went to live with my step-dads parents. I'm not sure how long we were there for but me and No1 sister soon moved to my dad's parents and we started new schools and life went on.
My mother then returned she had moved to London and started a whole new life and then decided to come back. We started to visit her at weekends then one day she asked me and No1 sister who we wanted to live with and we said with her, so we stayed. Police were involved then it went to court, my mother won custody of us and we went to live with her.
Not long after that our house was repossed, you see my mother likes to spend and spend and spend even when she has no money to spend. This was the first and unforunatly not the last time we were evicted from our home.
When I was 15 my mother, left her husband and married step-dad number 2 (My step-dads are a whole nother post). We were moved to watford then back to Essex, then we moved to peterborough when I was 16 so they could run a pub.
I would like to say life was good but it wasn't, the pub didn't last long so we moved to rented accomodation. My mother and step-dads had jobs on and off but there were times I was the only breadwinner in the house, and I only had part time jobs as I was at 6th form then college.
In the July of 1999, I went to a music festival in Belgium I was 19, when I returned from my weekend away my mother and step-dad had had an argument and he had moved out. That summer was the worst of my life, my step-dad shit stirred a lot, he blamed me for the break up (I wasn't even there!) and many other things. What he didn't know was my mother was having an affair with his best friend.
Unfortunalty my mother *forgot* to pay the rent (and many other bills) and we were being evicted. The plan was the day before the evictionme and my mother would go to the local council and see about being rehoused.
When I woke up that morning I knew something was wrong I could feel it in my stomach. I got up and my mother wasn't there, so I walked into town to see if she was at the council and she wasn't. I opened my purse to find some change for the phone so I could ring home. Instead of money I found a letter, my mother had left us again. She had choosen her husband over us and a little piece of me died inside.
Before this happened my mother was my best friend, we did everything together, we went shopping, clubbing we even went to college together and she left us. Even worse she actually blamed me.
Its been 10 years since she has left and I have had nothing to do with her, I can't bring my self to talk to her. My brother and sisters have all been in contact with her, though No2 sister no longer see's her after they had an argument about husband number 4!!
Yes she is now divorced from the man she left us for and is married for the 4th time and is she happy? No!
She keeps leaving, then coming back. She's forever in debt and No1 sister is now doing what I used to do, bail her out. You would think that she would learn from her mistakes but she hasn't. Thankfully I have, I try to make sure that my life is completly different from hers.
What I've told you today, is only half of the crap we put up with as kids, the stories I could tell would make you cry, they make me cry.
So thats why my deep dark fear is becoming my mother and her deep dark fear I think is being alone, thats why she keeps getting married, I don't think there has been a time when she hasn't had a man in her life. Unfortunatly she has a bad marriage and children that don't talk to her!
NM X
This was written for the Sleep is For The Weak writing workshop
