Thanks for your comments, Lou. No, there were no metaphors in my post. All literally true.
The theme of my life has been to be successful and friendly and say (in my head) to my parents: "Everyone else likes me, why don't you?"
It helped A LOT to have my aunts and uncles tell me that my mother has been standoffish and withdrawn her whole life. Probably part of it was temperament she was born with that was aggravated by some traumatic event early in her life. My aunts and uncles are the MOST loving, fun, high energy people-- I went to my first family reunion the fall after my husband died, and it was soooo wonderful. I think they were all afraid that I would turn out to be like my mother! But within five minutes we could all tell that I belonged with them. It was fantastic. This was my first experience in my whole life of what it means to be part of a family.
There were about a dozen of us staying in this big vacation house-- aunts, uncles, and a couple of cousins. I can't tell you how much it meant to me-- an only child, who had always been the "adopted one" in other people's families-- to find out that I had a fantastic family of my own. My mother had always kept us away from her siblings... she basically wants nothing to do with them.
She reminds me so much of Happy's wife-- a deep down anger and self-loathing that comes out of the dark hidden past and is poisoning the present. I think my mother and Hap's wife have this in common: there is no malice in them except what is directed inward at themselves.
My mother has made a good life for herself. She lives a long, long way from me in a senior citizens' apartment building where she has friends, she doesn't watch tv at all, she reads, walks every day. Given her diminished emotional resources and major emotional handicaps, she has done pretty well for herself. She's settled and I guess, pretty happy.
Meanwhile, I've been in therapy for basically ALL of my adult life coping with the fallout on me. (And attracting men who are emotionally unavailable in one way or another.)
