It's taken me quite a while to get back to this. The post about my childhood as I was raised by my mother happened quite a while ago. I started the part two the next day, didn't finish, stepped away, and had to stay away until now. There are reasons for this, but I think it may take me a while to really delve into all of them. For now, it is enough that I post this.
In part one, I talked about my time with my mom and how this shaped me. There were good aspects to it and bad ones. Most often, the bad outweighed the good. My mother wasn't the only one I lived with during my childhood. There was a lot of time spent with my grandparents, and after I turned 14, I lived with them exclusively.
First of all, I have to say that I do not doubt, even for a second, that my grandparents loved me. I felt their love. I am certain of their love. Love, after all, is far more than words. Love is body language, it is tone of voice. Love is the light in the eyes and the involuntary smile that can not be forced.
When my grandfather would tell the story about the first time he ever saw me, he would hold his hands out to show me how long I was . . . he would always look down and smile. His hands were always the same length apart, as if he was lost in that moment of meeting me for the first time. Even now, typing this, I can recall him speaking of my birth. Everything about this memory is happiness and love to me.
At the same time, as much as I knew they loved me, I was just as aware of their resentment. I realize this resentment wasn't directed towards me on purpose. They resented my mother for screwing up her life and I was the physical representative of that. Focusing on me was easier than thinking that my mother's issues might have had something to do with them.
There was a lot of frustration in living with them. This really couldn't be helped though. By the time I moved in with them, by the time I was 14, so much damage had been done to me already. I had my patterns and my defenses. I had my coping devices. The tragic thing is, the little baby, whose length her grandfather could recall from body memory, was long past dead. Whatever happy, stable person I could have become was gone. In return, they received someone far darker. Someone secretive. Someone who had to keep up her shields. Always.
I relate a lot of my behavior during these years to those of a benign sociopath. I was a sullen and twisted creature, but I loved my grandparents and knew a sullen and twisted creature was not what they wanted. So I would pretend to be otherwise. I would pretend to be sunny and cheery and happy. I would fake being in a good mood, that things were well, that I was okay. After a few hours of this a day, I would hide myself in my room and cut gashes into my feet and lower legs. I would escape into the worlds in my head. I would do anything to not BE there.
Sometimes I just couldn't fake it though. I guess I was like in my second year of high school when this particular instance happened. I'd been on some bus trip for some school function. Band or something else, I don't even remember what. The trip was rough on me emotionally. My teenagery feelings were destroyed and by the time Grandpa picked me up from school, it was all I could do to walk. When we got to the house, I told him I just needed a moment. I sat in the car, trying to regain my composure, trying to force myself to be ON, to be in Good Granddaughter mode.
I just couldn't do it. I sat in the car, paralyzed by wave after wave of emotion. After a while, the tears came and I wept and wept, trying to make myself get out of the car, get into the house, and act reasonably sane. But as much as I wanted to do this, I couldn't. I just couldn't.
After a while, my grandmother came outside and tapped on the window. I looked at her through my tears and suddenly I felt this rush of relief. I thought this was going to be one of those moments like on TV or movies where the wise old person sees the crying teenager and offers up advice and makes them feel better. I remember feeling suddenly excited, like this was some kind of rite of passage.
Instead, Gran frowned disapprovingly at me and hissed, "You GET in the house!"
When I managed to get my sad, weepy ass inside, they had me to sit in the living room and both proceeded to yell at me for being so ungrateful and weird. I was bitched at for not being nice and kind to Grandpa when he came to pick me up. I was yelled at for sitting in the car and scaring them, for not acting like a sane human. They never asked me why I did these things. They never asked about my tears. Because it wasn't about me. This was about them. And as much as they loved me, when emotional or stressful situations happened, it was about them and my feelings were to be kept in check.
When grandparents are forced to raise you, you never really get them to function as parents and you never really get them to function as grandparents. They're damaged by what your parents did and so are you. Suddenly all the broken people are trying to live together and it just isn't going to work in a non-messy way.
Here's the thing . . . grandparents should get to be grandparents. They should see kids on occasion . . . weekends and holidays, special afternoons. The time should be fun and positive. Grandparents should be an escape from the day to day hell. They should be a comfort to you. It shouldn't be about the mundane day to day of your life. It shouldn't be arguments about how much time you spend on the phone.
Time with your grandparents should always be the love and the stories. It should always be the memory of your grandfather's smile as he holds his hands out to show you how tiny you were when he first held you.
My grandparents were respectable people who felt they were doing the right things.
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