Remember back in grade school when you used to have to do contrast and compare assignments? Being homeschooled was no different, I had to do them the same as anyone else and I always hated them, but mainly because Mom would put a word count or page limit on the assignments and I typically balked at having my creativity fenced into someone else’s rules. When I started actually laying the groundwork to actually begin writing a non-fiction book about my childhood, those contrast and compare scenarios started firing off in my brain almost immediately, and I’m not going to lie, I kind of hated her in those moments.
See, the problem I have is that there is a lot about my Mom that is held on a pedestal to me, things I cherish about her. In comparison, my Dad is the villain in the majority of my story. There isn’t an easy way in my mind to tell a story that encompasses both of them without it just being a run-on of memories, and I desperately want to find a point here – that’s why I’m writing this after all. To find out what it all means – what lesson do I take away from here?
When I talk about Mom, the majority of it is told in a state of longing. I have a lot of deeply rooted grief for the things about Mom I never learned, that in the fifteen years I had with her I never thought to ask her about before she was gone and I couldn’t. I think back to the song Red by Taylor Swift more often than anything as it relates to writing and capturing the look and feel of a moment. If I was going to talk about memories of my Mom, it would be delicate pastels – shades of lilac and mint – sweet like buttercream frosting – cozy like a knitted blanket and hot chocolate on a rainy day… comfort. That’s what I dearly miss most about her – comfort. If you think back to the single thing that made everything better when you felt bad as a child, my guess is it’s a maternal figure of some sort… Their hugs are biologically proven to make everything better.
But back to the color of a story – in contrast to the warm comfort I feel about Mom, when I think of Dad, everything is harsh. It’s the swirling of storm clouds, that ominous green that’s almost black right before everything goes to shit all around you. It’s hot coals, so dark red that they’re black, burning everything in their wake. It’s the TV channel that was always a static mess of black and white lines, screeching in a high enough pitch you couldn’t change it fast enough before you were sure your eardrums were going to burst.
Dad was a land mine, in human form.
Even writing that now, all I feel is guilt. That little voice in the back of my head (the one that sounds surprisingly like my great-grandmother) starts scolding me the minute I say or think anything negative about him. It’s with my mother’s grace that I worry the most about misunderstanding people, or not having empathy to understand what caused them to be the way they are. But is it really her grace that gave me that, or is it the years of manipulation from Dad that has left me questioning which reality is in fact, real?
Do you get it now, why I never seem to get far when I attempt to write this? Because it’s a constant battle of contrast and comparison – and there is no right or wrong answer. Maybe that’s why I hated it so much as a kid – because it’s a gray area… a matter of opinion which is never wrong or right – it just is. And for a recovering scapegoat, you need the constant reassurance that something is right because your whole life is built on you being wrong at a cellular level.
Mustard Seed Mama 