More to Understand

Hello World,
      To more understand, we must go to the beginning of her life. My mom was born in 1941 while her father was serving our country abroad. There are two pics of my mom at about age 1- 1.5, one in a dress & one in overalls. I never got a clear answer to why there were two pictures from her except that my grandmother had to send my grandfather a picture of his child and he had wanted a boy but got a girl - so both poses were taken. Why? Who knows? Surely when he came back he would've seen she was a girl, so why the overall picture? I also found out later that when he did return, my grandmother did get pregnant again but loss the baby early on. So what if? & Why didn't they try again? I can only assume due to lack of money.
      My grandparents from what I remember were kind, amiable, funny people but strict and strong in their faith. People in the community loved them, especially my grandmother. She was greatly loved by all that knew her all the days of her life. My grandfather died when 1986 and my grandmother passed in 1993. I obviously not witness to her early growing up but I did see how they treated my mother for what I can remember from age 5 - 25. What I remember was my grandfather was a bit tough with his teasing of her. I know from she told me "he was mean & teased her" about weight, looks, and grades. He pressed to her that she had to be thin and always look her best - which apparently he told her she was "not that pretty" most of the time. As for weight, as most Hispanic men, they want their women to stay thin, but ironically my grandmother was a full figured woman who was a wondrous cook. As for brains, my mother quickly figured out that being smart was her ticket out of her poverty life . However, I always found it amazing that my grandparents would remind her that although she was 'book smart' she was not so smart to be better than her parents.
      The more I remember and now know as an adult was that my mother was/is a very insecure person and as prickly as they come. She had/has no sense of humor so any 'teasing' was seen as cruel or taken to heart as true. By making herself accomplished, married with wealth around her, I think she thought that would fill her soul & better herself in everyone's eyes. I do remember the last 2-3 years before my grandmother passed away, they would have so many fights. My grandmother at times would try to step in but many times shut down by my mother. She also would remind my mother to 'lighten-up' but that never happened either. I think no matter how much my mother surrounded her with stuff....my grandmother still saw through it and knocked her down. (I know that feeling).
      It may be mean to say but I have to say I enjoyed sometimes seeing my grandmother shoot my mom's arrogance down from time to time. And although she couldn't retaliate against his own mother, she could strike me down for trying to do it too. I from a very young age, have had a 'sarcastic' sense of humor but all just in good jest. My mom saw it as rude & disrespectful. I quickly learned to 'bite my tongue'. I was to some degree 'two' people. Carefree & silly at school with friends and then reserve & distant at home.
This was my life from a very early age into adulthood, I didn't fit into my own family & home.
     

A Way to Understand

Hello World
        To understand my life is to understand first, my mother & her life. She was born mid 1940's with a father off at war who wanted a boy. He came home to a girl and that was the only child he had. My grandparents were kind, funny, full of life but somehow that did not pass on to my mother. My grandfather was a taxi driver & grandmother a seamstress and made due with what they had. With only one child they put a lot of hope & pressure? on her to be more than they had been. By grace of God, although not born with a dime to her name, she was born with beauty & brains and took full advantage of them both to get what she wanted. When she realized all she could get either by earning it or using manipulation, she became very, very good at getting what she wanted. Unfortunately she later believed she was owned back for all her suffrage from everyone & especially those who held her back, or prohibited her to being more, having more. She once told me sons are good - they become something and always love their mothers, you are nothing but a silly girl, who won't amount to anything.
        Girls are useless....and yes, the fact that she too was/is a girl never made sense...but there begins the insanity of my mother....believing that she was better than all women & should've been born a man. All women are stupid, over sensitive, gossiping useless beings who do no more than waste time & bother others. She truly believed that NO women were to be trusted. There was NO SUCH THING as 'best friends' , sisterly bonding, friendship, etc.....She also believed all women had EVIL MOTIVES for everything!!! & I mean everything....her paranoia was equally crazy. However, since she truly believed the world revolved around her, people are naturally evil & conniving, and no one is too be trusted - ever!  This incessant unhappiness in her own life poured over to us, her family, but more so-me, her only daughter.
        To live with this much negativity was difficult but more so for me. I have to say, God has a sense of humor because he gave me to her. I think his thought was to help her soften as a person or mother/women & for me to be a stronger independent woman, like her but the sad thing is I was/ nor am anything like her! I can see how I was a 'disappointment' I was to her. My passions were the arts. I was a good student for the most part but I had no drive for academics. In my mom's ever demanding goal to be thin & 'resentable' she put me me in ballet which I actually did love to do. From there I went into cheerleading & hip hop dance. Throughout all this I found much joy with friends and even school as an escape from every day life. I had several good friends who let me be 'who I was' and liked me. If I told  my mom I had to be 'differnt' when I was home or around her, she only got  more paranoid and cruel in thinking I was being ungrateful and disgraceful daughter. She laughed when I would say 'I just wanted to be be myself'. She found humor in this because she would get in my face & say "'how stupid are you? to believe your friends like you?? they really don't! They tell you that so you will tell them more about our life & they mock us because they are jeaulous of us' This is how daily crazy my world would be.....No friend was really mine, no trust was real, no friendship was real...she was the only real person I was supposed to love & trust....Somehow deep down in my heart, I knew that was false.