4 am

The Wise Mama Ba

I often wake in the middle of the night, crying and upset, feeling so alone and angry to have been dealt such a challenging hand. We all have crucial moments where we must face Life alone, but most folks have people around them for comfort and support between those times. Imagine if you can, having absolutely nobody to depend on, to call for comfort or to rely on. The whole time you’ve been alive, this is a basic human comfort you have never known. Family. How do you make it through the dark when you’re afraid? Who’s there to let you know everything will be okay? No one has been there for you as a child and by the time you reach my age, it feels like no one ever will be.

I not only console myself about whatever is frightening me; but I also have to calm myself about being the only one here to do so. As a child I never knew the security and protection of a family. On the contrary, it was my family who I needed protection from. Consequently, as an adult I'm unfamiliar with the comfort, stability and protection provided by a loving family or even a husband, although I provide it for my children the best I can. I have to convince myself that I’m okay because I’m here for myself and I will protect us. I have developed a wise mother voice after all this time, Wisa Mama Ba, to say the things to me that we all need to hear to be alright when afraid, frustrated or confused. There’s usually a point where I have to detach from my emotional self just to get up and on with my day and triumphantly be the force that my children depend on for comfort and safety.

I am all my children have. Literally. I’m often overwhelmed by the extreme pressure of providing some sort of stability that will remain with them regardless of me actually being there. Thinking of them being alone in this world like I was before they came drives me crazy; at least they have each other and the chance to create their own families since they’re still young. But like me, they have no blood family beyond me that we are in touch with and that makes me so sad. Yet my daughters are strong and nourished, secure in who they are as individuals. Essentially I have instilled all they need to succeed whether I’m in the flesh or not. But I still feel lost sometimes, not knowing my grandparents, aunts, cousins, in any other way than being the unwanted bastard mulatto child of two troublesome youngsters.  

Lack of these basic relationships have made it difficult for me to build strong intimate bonds with people in the world. Yet there is an upside to the tragedy: I easily connect with everyone on a very basic, human level and feel like we are all part of one, huge family. I have more regard for strangers than most people have for their own family members because I honor this bond so much, being deprived of it in my personal life before having children. It’s kinda cool to be able to somehow relate to everybody and know that we’re all linked by something beyond any of our comprehension. It’s that monumental connection to humanity that has kept me from disappearing into complete and utter dispair. No matter how alone I feel, the second I step into the world, I have consistent interactions of compassion, camaraderie and unity with people on the streets, in cafes, at the grocery store; wherever I go I find family.

But I worry about the example I’m giving my daughters. Only in that I am extremely critical of the company I keep and most often, after leaving a thriving community in Atlanta, I’ve been on my own here in Denver. All of my deep adult friendships were forged with people I encountered during my twenties which I spent in New York and Atlanta. After having my oldest daughter, I moved back here to my hometown hoping to finally get close to my mother. After years of estrangement we finally made peace about our tumultuous past and I thought the move would help facilitate our healing, which it did for a while. Being away from my her for so long, 16 years at that point, I had forgotten the depth of her psychosis. After only a short time, I felt myself negatively influenced by her constant complaining and poverty mentality. She was still in victim mode; always brought up tragic news like the most recent missing children or rape and murder victims and her conversations dwelled on negative interactions with people. The truth was that getting away from her was the smartest thing I had done and now I was back in the fire with her like a crab in the barrel; just pulling me down every time I made a move to get up.

Misery loves company and she was elated to have me back. I had hoped for a grandparent for my child and possibly a friendship with my mom. But I forgot that she’s the most dysfunctional person I know and that being around her is soul draining. She had began drinking again after 15 years of sobriety and it was ugly to watch, so I started to drink with her. After a few years around her it got to the point where my Monday morning was her Friday night (she worked weekends and would be getting off on Monday mornings at 8) and we would be drinking and smoking marijuana by 10, after I dropped my kids off at school. I had recently graduated from CU and needed to get out there and get back on the work horse but I would be reduced to nothing mentally because I hated myself for being caught in her web. Great way to start to the week with failure. I would participate in this behavior in cycles; she was like that bad friend who you go and be your worst self with. But this was my mother.

It would inevitably get to the point where we’d have to have “the talk”, where I’d explain that I left all my friends and community to be closer to her so she and my children could have a relationship. By that point I had another beautiful child with another emotionally unavailable man and had moved on to do my best as a single parent. I had to ask her to not drink alcohol and smoke in the presence of my babes, which she would never adhere to. Being around her became a task and the family assistance and support I initially sought was never fulfilled. The more I brought it to her attention, the worse she got with her drinking. It was to a point where I had to pretend I was okay or even unaware of her being constantly drunk and high in order to be in her presence or else we would have it out. I personally preferred to evade the drama and would just act like I didn't notice, but it got to me. It reminded me of my childhood and I didn’t want my girls exposed to that. I knew I had to extract ourselves from her life once my girls began to complain about going to see her. I fell into a deep depression that I am just now emerging from, having to face the reality that this woman who had never been there for me, never would be.