"Yeah, well. Devil’s in the details, yeah? I wrote everything I could. Try to capture the moment, its essence. Because you never know what the thing’s going to be, do you? The essential, unlikely clue. Thing that, way down the line, maybe months or years later, makes you say, ‘Ah.’ Breaks the case wide."
i honestly don’t know how to even word what i want to say about this. i am always so blunt about my relationship with my father. i know where we both stand, but it’s the relationship i have with my mother that i don’t think i’ll ever fully understand. we have these days where it’s sunny out, so we decide to go grocery shopping and spend a day together. we make jokes. we complain about other people’s driving. we talk about anything that’s on our minds. it feels good and right to be able to talk to her this way. i actually feel like everything is going to be okay for once.
but then, she criticizes me for the way i present myself, the way i talk, or the way i act. i can never do anything right in her eyes. she misgenders me. she doesn’t take my trans identity seriously, even after i basically broke down in front of her over how much it hurts me and puts me in danger. when i was institutionalized, all she cared about was what other people were going to say. she didn’t even want to talk about why i ended up in there. every time i mention how depressed i was during my childhood, she points fingers at my father without realizing that he was absent for most of it. she was the person who told me that it was my fault when i was assaulted because of how i dressed at 8. then come my manic outbursts where i can’t look at anything/one without wanting to punch a hole through it. she has flat out told me she isn’t proud of me and that she doesn’t know what i’m “capable of” before. she’s seen me at my worst and she looks scared. i hate the thought of that, but it’s true.
it’s complicated, for sure... i will never know how my mom can be so cruel and so loving at once. i will never understand how she can put up with me at my lowest, but i guess that’s just how we are. we’re just a neurodivergent, trans son and a single mother, with her own shit to deal with, trying to do their best.