It will be five years.

I had to think about that, how many years. It feels like an eternity. Like she's been gone longer than that.

Oh I miss her. Greatly. And there were many positive things that she gave me, life being just one of a thousand. But I hated being smart, being logical, having to fight for my independence, having to deal with her "disappointment".

But she was gone to me for so long before that. I remember sitting on the couch, watching a Dateline that featured bullying in schools. One set of parents were talking about how they didn't know how bad it was, how they were so sorry that they could not protect their young son, that they didn't listen. He'd committed suicide in 5th grade. As we were watching, she said, "HOW do you NOT know?"

It took all I had not to pick up the walnut bowl and bean her with it. Every last bit of restraint I had to sit there, unreacting, cool, calm, collected. She didn't know, she didn't listen. For so long I thought it was malicious intention, but when I was 16, I learned that she never knew. God, that day...confirmation retreat. Having to spend three days with your former tormentors. I kept to myself. She'd noticed that I had not been social. "Well, they made fun of me all the time when we were in grade school." "Oh? I thought it was teacher." I could feel my heart sink, and my soul melt through my body, oozing out of my feet and through the floor of the van, puddling in the street. It was then that I vowed no matter how compelled I felt to say something about it, I would never let them know. It is long passed but still effects me once in a while, but I've still managed never to tell. And I never will.

Even after watching that Dateline, I still said nothing, and I could have said a lot. She never knew why I wrote that I hated her, and it would be for that reason. If, as she truly believed, a parent's job is to protect their children, she'd done a piss poor job of it with me.

And then I think of her talking about marriage. I know she trying to dispense wisdom to me, but her version of marriage sound so stifling and constricting, I still think I'll never get married. Even before the betrayal of trust, I was having doubts. And it should have ended right there. But I was too stupid, too forgiving of something I couldn't forgive. A lesson learned, is all. And I never told her.

My whole life, just not telling her. Enforcing the boundaries. Protecting her from the things I knew would devastate her. But that is okay, I really think I'm coming to terms with it, on the fifth anniversary that she's been gone. I loved her, I miss her, but not like how other people would. I don't understand when people say, "I wouldn't be able to function if I lost my mother". I miss the good things, the talking, Sunday paper reading, taping West Wing. But there's those glaring things, things that I carry with me, that I can never forget nor forgive. I've been functioning without her for a very long time, and such as it is, I could go on without her. But I knew this when I knew she was going to die. That I'd be sad of course, but it would never erase the years of pain, and those years are etched deeply into my soul. Everyone thinks I'm strong, that I was able to still go to work the Monday after, that I wasn't devastated by her death, and in that, I feel like a fraud, because it's not so much strength, as it is that I've only had to rely on myself for my own emotional support ever since I was about 9.

I learned lessons that no child should have to learn. For that, I feel a mixture of pain, pity, regret but also of relief and reliance. Because of this, though, I've been acting like some petulant teenager for the past few years, pouting and whining. Now, for once, being the person I am, that I wanted to be. Peeling off the layers of insanity to be free, living in Magical Night.

If she had lived, I'm not sure that I would have found myself again.