Motherless Bride

So, since my last post, I got engaged (March 6th)!  Woo hoo!  I'm really excited about it, Matt's my favorite and I haven't killed him, so I think this is a good thing.

Of course, there's always those other issues that I have to contend with that sometimes put a damper on my excitement.  I'm speaking, of course, of my decision to cut my mother out of my life.  That would be one thing, but my birth father is also out of the picture - he was an awful person who I barely knew and he died in 2012 - and my grandparents died in 2005 and 2007.  Not only that, but I have little to no contact with the aunt and uncle I grew up with (they were the legally adopted children of the people I called my grandparents, while my mother was the foster child, so I have no legally recognized relationship with them), and all that I have left that is technically family is my mother's soon-to-be ex-husband's brother, sister-in-law, and niece (who has a husband and two daughters).  I am, essentially, alone.

Normally, I am fine with this.  But there's something about weddings that I guess makes you lose your mind a little (maybe this is just me), because it was really hard to go to David's Bridal and do my dress appointment knowing that my mother wouldn't be there with me like she was supposed to be, and it's really hard to know that Grandpa won't be giving me away at my wedding or dancing with me at the reception because he's gone.  And I never really mourned either of them, either, my mother kept me away from them after I moved in with her and I saw them once before my grandma died, and then I saw Grandpa once about a year before he died, and that was it.  I didn't have a chance to have a connection with them after I left their home, and I had so much awfulness happening around the time of my grandmother's death that I barely had the chance to register it, and I was working 47 hours a week at Arby's when Grandpa died, so I didn't have a chance to think about his death much, either.  The older I've gotten, the more painful it's been, because they were more parents to me than my mother ever was, and they would have been there for the wedding, Grandpa would have given me away, Grandma would have wanted to be in the room with me while I get ready (she would be 102 if she was still alive, so I kind of doubt she would do much to help), Grandpa would have at least tried to dance with me for the father/daughter dance, and I just feel like I've lost something I didn't even know I was going to miss.

I think the hardest part is realizing that there is no one left who remembers my birth, who knows all the stories from before I can remember.  (Even if I was in touch with my mother, she lies about everything constantly, so I can trust nothing she tells me.)  There is no one left, in the traditional sense, who knew me when I was small.  I didn't realize it when I was 20, but I am very much alone.  Yes, I have amazing friends who I am proud to call sisters, and yes, I am gaining a whole new family by marrying Matt, but none of them remember my first birthday.  None of them can tell me what kind of baby I was, or whether my mother had morning sickness with me and how bad it really was.  It's all these small things that I'm supposed to do with my mother, or at the very least a grandmother, and they crop up when I don't expect them and blindside me and then I spend hours crying because it hurts so much to realize that this is the hand I have been dealt.  Most of the time I can reconcile myself with it, but moments where I'm discussing floral arrangements with Matt's mother, or how I want to decorate, or talking about cake or invitations, and I think that it's supposed to be my own mother that I should be talking to about these things, this should be my mother that helps me plan my wedding.  I'm grateful to Matt's mother, she's wonderful, but it's not the same.

I know I am lucky, and I feel ungrateful for feeling the way I do.  Erin's dad is giving me away and (probably) doing the father-daughter dance with me.  Matt's family has welcomed me with open arms.  I've had multiple volunteers for stand-in for mother of the bride, and even grandmother of the bride, and they will be treated as such at the wedding.

I wish there was a guide for this type of situation.  I can find nothing on the internet for brides whose mothers aren't dead but aren't going to be allowed anywhere near the wedding (like seriously, we're showing her photo to the ushers and having them tell her she can't come in, and if she insists, they're to call the police and get me, because I want her nowhere near my wedding).  There's plenty of guides for brides who had good relationships with their mothers who died, but my mother is not dead and I did not have a good relationship with her.  My mother is in Colorado, and there I hope she stays.

I know I am lucky, and I am grateful to everyone who has offered to help (even if I have no idea how to accept help or what to tell them to help me with), I am grateful to everyone who has been so supportive, I really am.  But tonight... tonight I am just sad and lost and feeling very orphaned.

Evoked

I'm laying in bed right now, trying to settle before my final tomorrow morning, and grabbed my phone so I could make sure I had alarms set. I still had the camera app open, on selfie (hush), and noticed something different about my face now that my jaw is more prominent. (I'm still losing weight, my face is getting skinny.)

I took a couple pictures and looked at them and realized I could see the way my mother holds her jaw in the way mine was in that moment. I don't see her terribly often when I look at myself, which is a relief since that would be painful, but I have these little moments where I miss her, or more that I miss the her she was, the person she is not. I miss the concept of a mother, I think, more than anything else. It would almost be easier if she had died - there would be sadness and closure, instead of knowing that she's out there somewhere and knowing that there will come a time when I can no longer keep track of her and she will disappear forever. It's tough realizing again and again that I lost the relationship with her that I deserved to have, knowing that she either missed or didn't care about most of my milestones growing up, and now that I'm an adult, she's not here to watch me go to college, or promise me that I'm still a worthwhile person when I fail every test this semester (this semester has been delightful, by the way), she's not going to be around when Matt proposes, or to watch me get married. She won't be here to get excited and cry at the thought of becoming a grandmother when we start expecting a baby. She's missing everything, and I'm missing the conceptual her that lives in my head, that holds me and gives me advice and tells me she loves me no matter what happens because she's my mother and that's what mothers are supposed to do. It just breaks my heart, especially when I see other women and their mothers and their closeness and it hits me again and again that I will never, ever have that relationship, no matter how much I wish, and even if I try to ignore that missing part, it's there, reminding me that she's not there and never will be.