Middle school through sophomore year in high school, I went to church. I loved church and I really loved the people. It was always a safe place where I felt I could be myself and people liked me because of it.
When I first moved in with my mom, all I had ever known was small town life where people talked about God. My mom lived in a small city surrounded by other cities; you didn’t have to drive far to get what you needed and only a few kids at school talked about God. Instead of being open to my new life, I was closed minded and judgmental. I am ashamed to say that I even judged my own mom. But in all actuality, my mom judged me too. Because I went to church she judged me as a “goody two shoes.”
At the same time, I was trying to make her more of a stereotypical mother figure. I even started calling her mother, which she did not like. I bought her plain cotton shirts with pink flowers on them and asked her to cook cookies and things for me, because I thought that’s how a mother was supposed to act. Keep in mind that I only saw my mom every other weekend, which sometimes we didn’t because she was working or couldn’t afford the trip to small town, USA.
I really didn’t know her at all. In an effort to get to know her, I snooped through her room. From what I have heard from others, I’m not the only one who has ever snooped through their parents’ stuff. I still don’t feel right about it, partly because I found some very private materials, and partly because it’s just wrong. It was so disturbing; it shocked me and rocked me to my very core. So what did I do? I wrote about it in my journal.
After coming home from a weekend with dad, I walked in to a nervous woman pacing the living room floor. She was holding my journal. She had read everything. Apparently, I had written some pretty awful things about her and she was ready to confront me. My stomach hardened, my heart started beating quickly in my ears like drums, and I couldn’t catch my breath. I knew what I had done was wrong and I didn’t know what to do to fix it.
We yelled at each other for a very long time. She told me I was closed minded, judgmental, and a hypocrite. She also forbade me to go to church. Said I needed some time in the real world to soak it all in. This was a blow and it hurt. I didn’t know what to do so I yanked the journal out of her hands, fled the living room down the short hall to my tiny bedroom, and slammed the door. I heard the front door close. She left.
While she was gone, I started screaming and making horrible roaring sounds. I was overcome by emotion and panic. I frantically started searching for my new journal, the one I had just started. What she had found was a complete journal that I had had since I moved in with her. A whole year’s worth of crazy emotional teenage rants.
I couldn’t find my new journal; it wasn’t in my room. I immediately forced open the door, marched across the hall, and stood in my mom’s room. I don’t know how I knew, but I lifted up the mattress on my mom’s futon, and found my new journal, hiding beneath it.
Ugh! More roaring sounds; to rid myself of the pain and embarrassment, I ripped my old journal to shreds. Even the cardboard cover was no match for my rage. I ripped it too. But for my new journal, I ripped out the first few pages that I had written, but saved the journal. I still have it today. My small bedroom floor was crammed with shredded paper in a perfect mountain. I grabbed a white trash bag and filled it with my judgmental thoughts and closed minded feelings. By the time I was finished, my mom was home. I grabbed the bag and marched out of the apartment and through the front door, straight to the dumpster. When I returned, shaking, red faced, and exhausted; my mom hugged me.
By the end of our first year together, I started buying her halter tops, asked her to buy the cookies, and went back to calling her mom.
I stayed away from church for seven years. Even though she made me quit church, and I’m sure it’s frowned upon, but in a way I’m grateful. I really did see the world as a horrible crazy sinful place, which it is, but I didn’t understand it. Now I understand it, but have a Christian worldview instead. I’m no longer judgmental, closed minded, or a hypocrite. I’m a part of this horrible crazy sinful place.
a daughter's memories 