58

She would have been 58 today.  To be honest, I don't think she would have handled it well. 58.  The idea of my mother being this close to 60 is unreal. She wouldn't have handled her 60s well. It would have felt wrong to her. Hell, the idea of it feels wrong to me.  It's probably best things ended when they did.

She said the best year of her life was the year she was 33.  Makes sense.  When she was 33, it was in the middle of an Interlude. This was the longest Interlude. It was between husband #3 and #4. She finished two years of college during this time. My brother and I were happy and stable in school. She had a decent-ish job.  There was this kind of possibility of a future.  It didn't last, of course. But for a brief time, it was there.

Though, I'm not sure if I'm vindicated or just really sad that she recognized this as the happiest year of her life, and yet STILL went on to get #4 and #5.

The worst part is, #4 was the husband that broke apart everything. He wasn't the most violent or the most abusive.  It wasn't even the husband that kept our lives in the most danger. But he was the one where she compromised the most.  This was the husband where all lines were drawn in the sand. She crossed them. So did I.

I've mentioned this before, but it's important to repeat. During #4, she actually told me that she would choose him over us.  She said that she would do so because 'we were going to eventually leave and then she would be all alone.  But a husband wouldn't leave her.  She wouldn't have to die alone.'

Two things about that.

First of all, she still died alone. She may have been married at the time and living with the man, but when she died, she was alone and asleep.  So, honestly, no real amount of planning on our part will determine who is with us when we die.

Second of all, and this one is far more important, there are worse things, so many, many worse things than living and dying alone.

There is living in compromise.
There is living in fear.
There is living with someone who doesn't see you for who you are.
There is living with someone who demands you drain all of yourself for them.
There is living with someone who is never happy.
There is living with someone who must manipulate all situations always.
There is living in such a way that you betray yourself (and your children) so much than you can't even look at yourself in the mirror anymore.

Living alone is better than all of these things. It's cleaner. It's less complicated. It's less dangerous. Living alone means you get all the choices. You don't have to argue with someone about how you kitchen will look. You don't have to worry about what they think of your dogs. You don't have to listen to them make comments while you're trying to talk on the phone. You don't have to ever think about what anyone else wants or needs. Only you.

I don't know. Maybe that year when she was 33 was just more than she could handle. Maybe the idea of being happy was so foreign to her that she just got scared. Maybe she didn't feel she deserved it.

Whatever the case, she's gone now.  I miss her, despite all of our hell, I still miss her. I do not miss her chaos, but I miss her. Happy birthday, Mom.