I’m not sure where to start. Honestly, I’d rather lie in bed and sleep but it’s not good to get lost in my head.
I guess to start… I’m looking to find out how to obtain my birth certificate. My dad was in the Navy and I was born in the Philippines. So I’m not sure how to get my birth certificate. I called my uncle to help me out, so he called my mom. My mom told him that she has my birth certificate and I should just call her. My uncle gave me her number, which I wanted in case she by chance changed her number. It’s the same number. I thought about it. It gave me so much anxiety just thinking about calling her. My uncle sounded pretty positive about this, so I decided to give it a go. I haven’t heard from her in a long time and maybe it would be cool to talk.
So I called her up. It was about 7:30p her time on a Saturday night so I knew that she had already had dinner and probably watching tv. She answered and asked, “Who’s this?” I was taken back for a moment. I mean, I can’t imagine not recognizing your own daughter’s voice, but ok. I said it was me and asked how she is and she simply said, “What do you want?” Ok, so making conversation is never easy with her. I asked if she by any chance have a copy of my birth certificate. She said no. Then she said that she doesn’t know. Then she started yelling about how it could be anywhere around the house or in a safe and that she doesn’t know if she even has it anymore. I interrupted because I couldn’t listen to anymore. I could hear in her voice that she didn’t want to talk to me and I was bothering her. I told her that I was sorry that I bothered her and if she finds it to contact me or not, it’s up to her and to have a good night and then I hung up. Then I started crying.
According to my phone, this call was 50 seconds long. It isn’t even possible to talk to her for a minute without being yelled at. What hurts more is that I thought that maybe, just maybe, she might want to talk to me. She made it sound to my uncle as if it is my fault that we don’t talk, that she would like it if I called. I never have ‘disappeared’ out of her life. She has never given me the feeling that she ever wants me around. She has made it clear that I bother her. That her grandkids bother her. I told her when I moved out of California. She has always had my address and phone number. She doesn’t use the internet so I never bothered with social media. I gave her birthday cards, mother’s day cards, and Christmas cards. I mean, ok, she has never called me unless she had some wild hair up her butt and felt that she needed to scream at me at that moment’s notice. After my dad died, I, nor my girls, never received any birthday card from her or any form of communication short of her outbursts when she was angry at me.
So maybe I was fooling myself that she would actually want to talk to me? In the back of my mind, I knew I shouldn’t have called her. Nothing good ever came out of calling my mom. I feel like an idiot. Why did I think I’d be able to have an actual conversation with her?
I don’t understand. Why is she always so angry? What did I do? I have done just about everything she wanted me to do. Even when I got pregnant when I was 20 by my fiancé, she pushed and threatened me to get an abortion. I did that. Even if it wasn’t fair to Kevin, even if it killed me.
I feel like I shouldn’t even bother trying anymore. I don’t understand her behavior. I don’t know how to get around it or fix it. I’m just sad now. Yesterday I was angry, but today I’m just sad.
