so last night I had a mental breakdown down to the point of tears. All I was doing was writing a post for the other blog that I work on retreadingpop.com which was going to be about Flash Gordon. This turned quickly into a tale about my grandmother taking me to the movie, which lead to an emotional connection, which lead to me in tears. Now if I was a manly man I wouldn’t mention the tears part, but since I’m a geeky man – the world knows I cry whether I admit it or not.

After working through the tears I went over how to get my mind on things that would not cause me to break down. The first thing I did was scrap that blog post. It turned WAY too serious to fit over on that blog. I’ve written about it on my site (search Flash Gordon in the search box) – but I took a different turn with it than I did before. So the post was scrapped. I’m going to revisit it later on this site when I’m ready to ride that emotional roller coaster again.

Now you may be wondering while I said there was an emotional disconnection in the title, I’m talking about something pretty emotional. Here is how my thinking went – thinking about grandparents I’ve lost – thinking about grandparents still alive and how they wish I would reconcile with my mother – thinking about my mother – turning blah (and not breaking down anymore). I realized that I’m not sure I have any feelings toward my mother anymore. Between the time since I’ve talked to her, venting about her on the blog, and dealing with her stuff for years before the break – I just don’t care and have no emotional investment in her at all anymore. This surprised me.

Less than an hour earlier I was in tears in front of a computer screen over my grandmother who died when I was seven or eight – but I couldn’t dig up a scrap of compassion or feeling for my mother. She screwed me up so much on how to judge people, I think the last person I judged by the standards she taught me was her. This allowed me a clean break. As time goes by I think about my mother less and less. There is no anger anymore, no sadness, there is nothing. I would have thought at least I would have felt there would be a loss – but there isn’t.

When my son was born worrying about my mother’s crap faded more into the background, any need or anything else I would have needed emotionally from her – I receive from him. He actually does more stuff on his own now at less than two years old than my mother did when I was a teenager. So he is my rock. My mother always thought she was the perfect mom and all of her kids are perfectly normal. Unfortunately, we all learned different lessons from her and have become emotionally broken with warped realities in our own way. I will at least admit that and fess up to it. The rest of them will talk about issues sometimes in hushed tones – but they all want to be good children instead of having a breakup in life – like she and I did.

This is the way they want it to be and I’m fine with that. I’m out of the emotional roller coaster. I’m my own person that does need a maternal love that never really was there anyway. It was a false love that she had for me – instead of comforting me when I was sad – she would brag about my accomplishments to her friends. Appearance is everything. That’s why I’m sure that I’m so anti-appearance in everything – except when I am paid to care. Even writing this post I see that it “sounds” as if I have something against my mother – but how do you write about the things that have given you an emotional break without injecting something into it?

So after this, unless there is new material to shed light on things – I’m done writing about my mother. I’m done caring, so I may as well write about landscaping tips then her. I have the same emotional investment. Part of me thinks that it makes me a bad person that I care so little about my mother. This reflects the mirror back on myself to dwell on what is wrong with me. I’ve looked deeply into that mirror and I have my answer. No matter how I break it down, this is part of how she made and taught me. It has come back full circle. As I got over being emotionally wrecked, I have become emotionally at peace. In the end, I guess she has at least given me the peace to be who I am today. I am happy, and content, and don’t feel I’m really missing out on life. Thanks, mom, for putting me in a state where I really don’t need you to watch over me. Thanks, mom, for putting me into a place where I don’t need your approval. Thanks, mom.