Personal Narrative- ENG 102-06

I was about to graduate from high school and everything seemed peachy. My senior year went by unbelievably fast. I was ready to move on to what society called the ‘real world.’ I always wondered why those outside of high school and college used the term the ‘real world’ so frequently. I questioned this term because wasn’t the real world the world I was living in? If not, then was my world fake? If it was indeed fake, then what was the point to living it?
For the longest time, I thought there was no point to my life. I was going through the motions, and the times I enjoyed the most would be with my family and ‘friends’. My ‘friends’, until my senior year of high school were Buffy, Xander, Willow, Oz, Tara, Giles, Spike, and Angel. Those ‘friends’ were the imaginary characters on my favorite television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
During my senior year, life began to pick up. I had real friends I could converse with and my biological mother Judi was back in my life, and at the time it seemed she would be there to stay.
At the time Judi was living with her boyfriend Mo in Miami, Florida. She was not working, but she was being supported financially and emotionally (or so we thought) by him. All I truly cared about was that she was clean from drugs (which she was), happy and healthy. She seemed to be all these things, so my parents and Mo decided it would be best for Judi and me to see each other again.
Judi and I had had contact for over a year and my trust began to grow in her. We talked about the most random things, from the political to the personal and everything in between. The thing that got me the most, though, was that I felt I could trust and confide in her, something I hadn’t felt in a long time.
We had made arrangements for her to come up and visit with the family a few days before my graduation and the graduation festivities. She would stay for about a week with my parents and I.
Till then, we talked about what we were going to do when she arrived in Greensboro. She wanted to meet my friends and wanted to make a connection. I was finally ready, after all those years of estrangement between us, to build a foundation for the future. Then I got the call that rang ever so familiar to me.
No, she couldn’t do it again. No, it couldn’t be, but it was. It was the feeling that made me feel as low as the gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe. I tried to convince myself that it wasn’t possible, but it was. Judi’s proven track record proved me wrong once more. She had let the drugs become her master, and she was their co-dependent slave.
Since the age of 13, Judi has had an addiction to drugs and alcohol and has had short periods of being clean, but much more extensive periods of time where she was using. Time and time again she had let me down with broken promises and false hopes. I thought and prayed (and I never pray, but in this case I did) that this deadly trend would stop for good.
I had feigned a picture-perfect image of us mending our relationship, catching up. More importantly, I thought it would make my life complete. What I realized is that I was naïve to think her just being clean would make everything okay. Judi wasn’t going to change in an instance, but it would take a rebuilding of every facet of her life to make everything even somewhat okay.
At the time, though, I could only think of myself. I didn’t care what kept her from being there. The only thing I knew was that I wanted her to be there and she wasn’t. It took a lot of time to see her pain and strife and not just my own. I was committed to ignoring her phone calls, to deleting her emails and shredding her letters of apology. I reassured myself that she was someone I could not see or talk to for at least decades on end. The pain hurt that much. I would soon learn and realize that this behavior was foolish and forgiveness was inevitable.
We learned through continued contact with Judi that Mo had been verbally abusing and controlling her actions and moves. Judi, wanting to work, was forced to stay inside the house and be subservient to Mo. We also learned that Mo’s drinking had become quite excessive and that that type of environment did not help Judi in her recovery. When Judi fled 6 days before my graduation it was due in part to her being comfortable with drugs and the feeling they gave her, but also due to Mo’s behavior and actions and how they made her feel as a person.
Almost a year later, Judi decided to make a huge change in her life. She left Mo and came to live with my parents. From February 2006 till May 2006 she resided in my parent’s apartment and I would see her occasionally when I went home. I felt awkward around her and really was not ready to see her. Thinking that she could try again it with Mo, she decided to move back in with him to work things out. Within a month she was back with my parents.
She was taking charge of her life, not depending on a man for her happiness and well-being. She was working full time and going through NA recovery. The distance between us was creeping closer, but I still felt uneasy, and I believe she could sense it. I had respect for her as someone trying to take charge of their life, but Judi was never perfect. This was evident when she occasionally became ungrateful for the love and care my parents and I continued to give her. If she was grateful, she had funny way of showing it.
Over the years, forgiving her actions is something I would have to exercise quite often, but forgetting them was a thought I could not entertain. Forgetting all the pain she caused is an encumbering task. I do not have the will, nor the motivation, to start that process right now.
The status of our relationship was always unclear, she was never my Mom, my sister, and sadly, she is not someone I can call a friend yet. There are many chapters yet to be written in our tale. The one thing we both know about our story, is that it will never be a fairytale. I’m hoping we can pen stories together that come close in the future.