"When you're out, you're out"

I almost don't know where to start this post. So, I'll just start at the beginning. I am an only child, and my 3 1/2 children are my mom's only grandchildren. I was looking forward to a Thanksgiving full of Turkey eating, pumpkin pie, and my family in my home. That's not going to happen. I received this e-mail yesterday:

"Hi honey,
Please send me some halloween pics,I printed the ones of Ruthie at school and
the ones of Charlie,but I don't have any Lily pics. I think Dad and I are going to go up to Michigan for Thanksgiving since you are staying home. I think we are going to have a little get away before I have to have the kidney biopsy and dr appt in Dec. Love,Mom"

I would like to take this time to point out that they are not going on "A little getaway"
, they are going up to Traverse City with my STEP DAD'S brother and his wife to visit their daughter and son in law. We have a very long past, ML, H, and I, wherein they treated me like garbage growing up, and have continued to treat me as such now that I am an adult. To say I dislike them is a MAJOR understatement. Besides, last year we "stayed home" and had my parents, and my husband's entire family up here at our house. It was ok then, but this year, since my in-laws aren't coming (which was a disaster by the way, oil and water folks...) my Mom has decided she'd rather be with someone else's family. It hurts. A lot.

How do I even explain to you the seclusion of being an only child with a mother that worked overtime electively? How do I explain the pain of a childhood where my Mom would rather be at work and leave me at a sitter M-F 4:45AM-6:00PM and then elect to work overtime on the weekend even though we didn't need the money? To say I had a shitty childhood would again, be an understatement, but I've worked through most of it, and determined to make life better for my children.

There isn't an event I have missed by choice, and I would break my neck getting there even if it killed me. I even walked around my neighborhood with my 6 year old son on a pulled tendon because he wanted to try to sell popcorn to our neighbors. It hurt like hell. But I did it anyway, because I'm his MOM.

Anyway, when I called her this morning, it didn't go well. I tried to start off with other things, but then the conversation turned to Thanksgiving. I told my Mother that if she doesn't come and be with HER FAMILY that she's out. Not to bother coming or calling me for Christmas, and not to get my kids ANYTHING. I told her to act like I never existed because that's where it's headed, I'm already so far out of her life because I am very independent, because it's the way I was raised, NOT TO NEED HER. Now, at 29, she suddenly expects me to need her all the time? Why? Why would I want them up here when they gripe and groan about the drive (but expect me to make the same drive 7 1/2 months pregnant) and complain that I have too many kids and I don't need another one. Why would I do that?

It hurts that she doesn't want to be with us, but in the end, it's her choice. If she would rather go with my Step-father and follow him off the cliff, then I can't stop her. She is controlled by this man, something I would never, ever allow myself to be. it's sad,and it's unfortunate, but he's holding a grudge because I wouldn't let them take my 6 year old son with them to a cottage on a lake surrounded by his family that hates me, and always treated me like shit. My son can't swim, and my step Dad is the only person that watches him when he's at their house, add in large amounts of alcohol, and my Step Dad passed out on a beach, and who would be watching my son??? Nobody. That's why I would not let him go. Period. He's my child, I get to say NO.

Anyway, my Mother has ultimately made the decision, I didn't know it was me or them, but apparently it was, and they won. I give it 6 months before she's crawling back because she finds out what nasty, wretched people they really are. By then, it will be too damn late! I am more sure now, than ever before that this is the work of my step father. What a hateful self-loathing individual he is.

Like the title says, "When you're out, you're out" and she and her husband are definitely out. I can't do it anymore, the mind games, the manipulation, the trying to make me some sort of dependent freak that I will just never, ever be...I'm done. Washing my hands of it starting now.

,