Awkward relationships
I used to have just one mother. Then I had a step mother. Then I had a second step mother. Then the first step mother became an ex-step mother.
The last time I saw this ex-step mother was no lesser than 4 years ago, after leaving secondary school. She has tried to keep in touch with us for a while after her divorce with my father, but I guess without that crucial link, the relationship just reached its natural death.
Imagine my surprise, when my brother told he he had been keeping in touch with her in recent months. Imagine the shock when he tells me that she suddenly wants to have a dinner with my brother, my father and I, in honour of my graduation. Now, I dont even know where to begin on how bizarre and uncomfortable this is. Doesnt the word awkward mean anything here?
First of all, she has had nothing to do with my higher education. She didnt pay for it, she wansn't involved in in and she certainly didnt take any interest in it. So what is all this now about wanting to have a dinner in honour of something she just got to know recently? Lets not pretend that you are really celebrating my achievement here OK. It's as big a news as knowing that roti canai is going up ten cents. It just make me extremely uncomfortable when someone who hasnt been in my life for 4 years suddenly wants to have a dinner in my honour. It sounds... fake and pretentious... it sounds.... exactly like the kind of stunt she would pull.
Secondly, she's divorced to my father. That means that strictly speaking, I do not have any relationship with her any more. I got rid of calling her 'mak' and the thought of possibly having to call her that makes me shiver to the bone. It was what I called her throughout her marriage to my father, but after moving out and staying on my own, dealing with my own problems with my real mother, I made up my mind that I would stop calling anyone but my true mother that. It would be an insult to my mother to start calling someone else that. So really, this meeting would be a meeting between father, sons, and ..., a former wife a.k.a. former step mother. What are we supposed to talk about anyway? We have all moved on... well at least I have......
She opposed from the very beginning my relationship with my girlfriend... whom I am STILL dating. So what is there for me to say? She neither supported nor showed concern over my studies these 4 years. Even in my most dire time of need, I did not turn to her because as far as I was concerned, she belonged to a previous chapter in my life... the past... not to be digged up again. But as with my brother and father, they love hanging on to all this sentimental mumbo jumbo... not that its wrong.. but didnt it all come to rather bitter climax the last time? Unless I am getting old and loosing my memory.
Not that I am trying to be ungrateful or anything.... she did take care of us for a few years.. But I remain convinced that she did it out of respect to my father than truly caring for us... which I totally understand... After all, she fell in love and married my father.. ... not his children.. taking care of his children was something she just had to swallow down... the access baggage that comes along with the package. So now that she is divorce, and I assume that she too has moved on.. where does that leave us? What is my relationship with her now? Please dont say friends... because thats the last thing I would call it.
Talk about awkward dinners.. this wednesday is going to top it all...
posted by Compulsive Blogger @ 12:20 am
Comments: 1
