Motherhood

"All women become like their mothers. That is their tragedy. No man does. That's his."

-Oscar Wilde

When I was in tenth grade my mother walked out on me for the first time.

2006 was the year that I really began noticing women for the first time and as such it was also the year that the most influential woman in my life left it. Much like I had spent the entirety of my high school career searching for older brothers, filling the void that my mother left was also very important. My mom was special in the sense that she provided me with that uneasy confidence that I could do no wrong. It’s a mother’s job to do that for young boys, to pat them on the shoulder, to tell them that they’re handsome and that a constant menagerie of women would be lining up at their door any moment. I suppose that’s what made my whole relationship with women uneasy, my mother mocked me at sixteen for my virginity, she popped anti-depressants regularly, and I was often the one telling her to stop smoking weed.

My mother began leaving my home periodically around that time, I ended up dealing with the first real serious dejection and heart break around that time as well…

Thinking back to my valued highschool days I remember a girl in my AP European History class. She was extremely pretty, pretty to the point that even now I’m a little nervous thinking that she’s going to read this work and know I’m talking about her. She had the same little hipster traits I would find myself in love with for the next four years: she was artsy, intellectual, confident, a little bit of a smart ass and much like every relationship with women I had ever had…most of our talking was done through the written word. I could always weave a sentence much better than I could speak it, I appreciated the backspace button on my keyboard, the pause between IM’s…

Regardless she knew where she stood with me.

She knew I was the loud, obnoxious, and somewhat charismatic dorky kid who had never touched a girl and feigned confidence. She knew I found her ridiculously attractive and she also knew that humoring me provided nothing but enjoyment.

She rejected me pretty easily and with little effort when I finally did convince myself it was worth a shot.

It was a testament to her that there was no feelings of resentment, that we both knew where we stood, that I’d be a foot note and acquaintance and that she’d be a myspace or facebook for me to creep on. A story for me to tell and exaggerate.

It was a testament to the fact that my mother was much less tactful than a fifteen year old girl that I was filled with such resentment when she left. My mother left me with nothing but hate, she was a story for me to seethe with and I was a myth for her to gain sympathy from her friends. A story for me to hide and be ashamed of.

I have forgotten or perhaps refuse to remember how significant of an effect my mother had on me. I’ve replaced her with the female teachers who mentored me and told me my writing was amazing, the same women who I had burdened with another son silently, whom I expected to feel some sort of magical concern for my deeds. Perhaps because I came from a ruined family I will spend my entire life trying to build a functional one. Collecting my older brothers to come with me and guide me into battle. Collecting my mothers to nurture me and build confidence in ways my father could not…

The girl from my AP History class became a mother herself recently. Today she commented so eagerly on my choice of career, she patted me on the back with her ‘like’ of my status and my excitement for the first day of school. I imagined her using the same voice she used when she would seductively tell me ‘goodbye’ and when she would pretend to care and laugh at my jokes…

Were some people built to be mothers? To have the strange skill to build confidence and be the most magical people you know? Was it just because she was a mother that I put all this weight in her statements and attempts at small talk…

Or maybe as a man and more so as a man without a mother my own opinions and visions of what a mother is supposed to be is twisted.