Maybe if I say that over and over... and over and over, it will reach my brain.
I highly doubt that and not just because my brain is swimming in the great caffeine sea right now. Once again, one of my daughters has been crushed on the X-IL's "My way is the right way" highway.
I can't sit here and tell you horror story after horror story about my marriage... Well I can, but it wouldn't be fair because somewhere in there, I was kinda a bitch and played the eye for an eye, salmon swimming against the tide, I will survive game for a little bit longer than was decently possible. I did my dirt too. When my X-IL's talk about bad seeds, they do have a few stories that feature me as the wicked bitch of the North. I know they do and like I said, I deserve them.
But here's the thing, I have this thing inside of me that does't allow me to kowtow to people trying to dominate over me. If we can work together and come to a reasonable conclusion I can do that. If you walk in, tell me "This is how it's going to be. It's my way or the highway" and you aren't my actual or adopted mother, my teacher or principal in school, or the government, you don't need to be dominating over me.
(I could never be Anna Steele. Never.)
The night of our wedding, with family gathered around, my X-MIL gave her toast and she looked me in the eye and said, "I didn't want you but I guess I have to keep you now." Needless to say their entire family laughed and found it funny while my mother and I recognized it for the punch in the face it really was. That one sentence set the tone of the relationship I would have with my MIL to this day. If I had known that this was how she was on a regular basis, I would have pulled up stakes before the ink dried on the marriage certificate and run.
We've always been rams locking horns. I think that was our fate. She never accepted me as good enough for her son. I never kowtowed. She never accepted my daughters, I resented that she showed favoritism to my son only. She hated that I tried to make my marriage about my husband and I, I hated the fact that she had just enough control over him that just when things were going good she was able to convince him that I was the tramp that got pregnant on purpose. Not once, not twice, but three times. She hated that I insisted on running my household my way, and I resented that she kept making it so she got her way in my house from three hundred miles away. I was an age old story of MIL in Hell and the details may vary but you know the story, I don't need to tell it.
As with any MIL she always gave unsolicited advice. If the subject was as mundane as how to kill a cockroach and my solution was to crush that bad boy with whatever heavy I could find, her advice is to crush it with the north side of your left shoe in a rotating pattern. No not that way, this way. And in my x's eyes, mom is always right.
We had it out a couple of times. More than a couple and for awhile she backed down. Okay so she was really regrouping but I took my victories where I could and I didn't gloat, I wasn't a bad winner. (Maybe once...)
But then J and K started to gain weight. They take after my side of the family and we aren't exactly rail thin. On J, it was considered "more to Sugah to love" and he'd tone it one day when it came to sports. On K she was just fat. And what was worse, she said this K, repeatedly. And if you know K, you know that in terms of her self esteem it's not always up to par and kid gloves are needed. (insert story about the kid that took her parent's divorce very badly here) K didn't get any more graceful as she grew but that's okay becasue she is her own person and she will get it when she gets it. But that wasn't okay to my X-MIL. It was a parenting faux pas on my part that I am allowing her to find herself in her own time.
So recently, I decided that as K will be 13 this year and she's in middle school, it was time she got a grown up hair cut and stopped wearing the stinky cornrows I can do. So my mom paid for the style cut and tracks that our family stylist (That sounds so awesome to say) to give to K. She looked awesome. No, she looked AWESOME. For the first time in a LONG time, my baby walked around looking ahead of herself and not at the floor. She was happy and her self confidence was right up there where it should be or damn near close. My baby was happy.
And one overnight trip to Daddy's almost ruined it all.
X-MIL has moved to down Charlotte to be close to her kids since X-SIL has moved down here. Personally I think X-MIL has moved here specifically to torment and annoy me but I'm kinda biased on this subject. On Labor day, X had to work so X-MIL and X-SIL, who both grew up in NYC, one of the weave capitols of the world, took the girls to the pool in X's neighborhood. Seeing K's hair, knowing that it had glue in tracks and that she had just recently gotten a perm (Relaxer), she gave K a Shower cap to wear in the pool. Labor day, community pool, splashing.
In the end, my child looked like Erykah Badu when she took off her wrap in The Other Side of the Game video. I couldn't believe it! Who does that?!? And then to send back the advice not to put tracks in my daughter's hair anymore?!?! My daughter walked in here looking at the floor because she KNEW her hair looked jacked up. She didn't think there was any way I could fix it so that she didn't get laughed at at school.
I have to say here that I think sheer anger at my X-MIL and X-SIL fueled me to work that deep down magic that all black women are apparently born with but don't always tap into cause dammit, my baby looked like a rock star this morning and she walked out of here with her head held high.
And my mom, my blessed mother walked me down from my water tower yesterday because all I wanted to do was march over there and tell that woman exactly what she could do with her advice and herself last night. She reminded me that they've always been this way and her jacking up my daughters hair with sheer negligence wasn't a personal attack, it was just her being an asshole. It was nothing new. I was over reacting. I just need to regroup and change my tactics.
So, I'm not mad. I just need to work on my battle strategy. It's gonna be okay.
We cool.
We cool...
