Mechant Loup

Today, in my country as least, is Mother's Day. The day that all of us grateful children of 'the world's greatest Mom ever, ever, get to express that opinion to the whole wide world via facebook, twitter, and maybe even taking the old bird to brunch. Of course, all these great mother's get to bask in the glow of raising such lovely, appreciative children, and maybe get a free meal in the bargain. Quite a payback for lugging us around in the womb for 9 months, a free meal a year, and maybe a flower if they are lucky.

Of the two parental units that I was 'blessed' with, I like(d) my mother the best, of course her competition was my father, and that was not a high hurdle to clear. How do you lose to an disapproving, raging alcoholic with anger issues, and not a lot of a desire to actually parent his offspring?  It wasn't a close race, and the wolf that raised me, as I refer to her as, won easily, but as I said it was not much of a contest. Good thing too because the wolf that raised me, isn't going to be featured on the cover of Time magazine as anything remotely resembling 'mother of the year.'

I have been told repeatedly by various friends of mine to call my mother today, this day of celebrating motherhood, I have, so far, refused to do that, and we are about to take a trip into explanation land.  I haven't spoken to the wolf that raised me since Xmas, for reasons that need not concern us here, I made a choice over Xmas to not go see the wolf, and to stay in the fair city in which I live. It was, in retrospect, a poor choice. At least I think it was, I am not exactly sure, but the choice has been made, and even if I wanted to, I can't change it. That is the shit part of making choices, sometimes six months or so later they finally present themselves as clear, while at the time they were anything but clear. Clearly good or clearly bad choices you made six months ago, weren't so clear at the time, else you wouldn't ever experience regret. And regret is an emotion that just simply MUST be experienced at least once in our lives.

The reason I have been told to call the wolf is that she gave birth to me. My sardonic reply to that is 'I didn't have anything to do with that, and in fact if my opinion had been asked I would have advised her NOT to have a child with that asshole that called himself my father.'  They were not a good match, and they produced, well they produced me, enough said. Sometimes when you breed a sprinter with a sprinter you get a horse that can go the distance, MOST of the time you just get another sprinter, and trust me when I say this, in the race of life, I am nothing but a sprinter.

This is to say thank you to the wolf that raised me, thank you for deciding to bear the child of a poor man, thus ensuring our life was more difficult that it needed to be. Thank you for sleeping with an asshole, that spend the majority of our relationship, calling me, in one form or the other 'a useless fat fuck, who will never amount to anything.'  Thanks for sleeping with a man who would rather drink Pabst Blue Ribbon at the bar than ever attempt to throw a baseball with the son he had waiting at home.  Thanks for moving with said asshole to the middle of the sticks, and making sure your child was socially isolated, and grew up about as socially awkward as one person can be. Thanks for sleeping with a plumber, a man who only read cheap, American western novels, thus making sure that when I did learn to read, I had no clue as to what real literature was. Thanks for the fat gene, and the short sightedness that I inherited from your side of the gene pool. Thus, making me even more awkward, and half blind in the bargain. Thanks for ignoring my budding intellect, and neglecting the intellectual promise that I showed at an early age. Thus, making sure that what could have been a brilliant lad merely turned into one of (supposed) above average intelligence, but always wondering what might have been if I had been nurtured even a little bit.

Thanks for being the wolf that raised me, a title bestowed upon you by someone (not me) that you hardly knew. The title you earned when that person, long ago, got close to your creation (me), and figured out that with all the little 'gifts' you scattered in my psyche that I just simply had to have been 'raised by a wolf, there is just no other explanation.' A title that I am not even sure you know you possess, but one which suits you right down to the ground.  Of course, most people who know me, but haven't had the good fortune to meet you, will tell me that I am being harsh with you, that you birthed me, raised me, and provided for me the 'best you could.' Well no offense wolf, but I have been told by a LOT of people who know me, but not you, who have told me repeatedly that MY best simply isn't good enough. Neither, it appears, was yours, which, in some ways, explains a great deal of my life.

It isn't all your fault, and I don't really blame you anymore. I have, I hope, long since outgrown the need for your approval, or even for your belated attempts to nurture me. It is no longer important what  you did or didn't do to/for me when I was but a whelp. The reason(s) outlined above are the reasons that I won't call you today. Those reasons are enough, though lately I have found out about one more sin of yours that made my desire to speak to you grow even less (if that's possible).  That sin will not be recorded here, but trust me it is not something I am going to forgive anytime soon, if ever. Either way, wolf, happy mother's day, the good news is that the other cub you gave birth feels a lot differently about you than I do, and I am sure she has made this day special for you. I hope you enjoyed the flowers, and the brunch. I have told you before, and I will say it again. I am sorry, but, in me, you raised a lone wolf.