Since this is the place where Ethel and I vent- I have posted before about my mom and my sister. I lament about how my mom continually disappoints me and falls short of the mom I need and how my sister is exactly like her!
My sister is eight years younger than I, and yet she has spent her entire life doing EXACTLY what I do. We are different people with different strengths and she always chose to pursue mine. She participated in the same extracurricular activities in school and outside of school. When I started scrapbooking, she started scrapbooking. I have always loved taking photos and had gotten pretty good at taking them with my little point and shoot. I moved up to a nice camera with manual settings- a Canon Rebel XTi. It is one of the cheaper SLR cameras, but still a great little camera. A few months later, she bought a Nikon D60. When I had my first child, 17 months later, she had her first child. I waited four years to have another child and when I had my second, 19 months later, she had her second child.
I graduated college with a liberal arts degree. I was studying elementary education and have all of my classes for this degree minus the student teaching semester. During my last semester, I had a Reading Methods class where we had lecture one day of the week and observation in a local elementary school the other day of the week. During my observation, I observed that all the kids did was boring worksheets preparing them for the state standardized test. I asked the teacher about it and she said it was in the curriculum- that they must prepare for the test. It was very important- jobs depended on it. I hated this notion and decided I didn't want to teach and graduated at the end of that semester with a liberal arts degree. I never thought I would leave the state. And yet, I married a man in the military and ended up leaving the state- and wish I had certified to teach so I could teach elsewhere. Our first assignment as a married couple was overseas and I got a job substituting at the Department of Defense school overseas. I LOVED it and remember why I wanted to teach. I decided as soon as we were stateside, I would certify and everything would be fine. Our next assignment, was stateside but in a state where the only way I could teach was to go back to school for an entire 4 year program again. I did not have the money for that(expensive state) and got a clerical job at a law firm until we left the state. Unfortunately, we never left the state- we are still here! I told you all of this to tell you that my sister got a degree in something called "Family and Consumer Science". I have no idea what that is, but she said she wanted to be a counselor. So, imagine my surprise when she called to tell me she got an elementary school teaching job!
My mother- aside from being absolutely non-supportive- stalks me on Facebook. She comments and "likes" EVERY. SINGLE. THING. I say, post or do. She even goes on others' pages- friends of mine she is not friends with and comments on their stuff if I have commented on it. She appears to be so supportive on Facebook always posting these happy little remarks and "love ya" all over the place. Which is like a slap in the face to me, because it isn't true. While I have no doubt, I get my creative side from her- she made and decorated awesome cakes while I was growing up, she make my Halloween costumes and she sewed clothing for me. But, I always got the impression that it was not so much about doing something for me, as it was for praise and attention from others for what she had done.
I have always loved to write- since I was a child. I started a blog both as a way to get my thoughts out of my head and for the entertainment of others. I used to type "update emails" to family and friends and include funny little anecdotes about things the kids had done and they kept telling me I should start a blog because they were hilarious. So, I did. And I LOVE having a blog. It is kinda MY thing. I like having my own thing outside of them. I like being different, weird, whatever you want to call it and I like having my own identity. I don't want to be like someone else and resent when I am compared to others. Last year, sometime, I wrote a poem or two on my blog. And with a few weeks, my mother wrote a poem and posted it as a note to her Facebook page. But I still had my blog- my own personal thing that was ME.
Until today- when I logged on to Facebook first thing this morning and was hit in the face with the notice in the newsfeed that my mother has started a blog and written her first post. Imitation is NOT a form of flattery. Not at all. It is so incredibly frustrating to me- had I not been sitting in the middle of my son's soccer game, I would have lost my mind. I wanted to scream and kick things. Instead, I think I muttered, "sonofabitch" under my breath and my husband looked at me with his raised eyebrow. I said, "My mother started a blog." He laughed and said, "Of course she did." Jackass.
So, yeah... my mother started a blog. And she follows MY blog, so there is nowhere I can even vent about this except her... in my (and Ethel's) own little corner of the blogosphere. I try to keep all references between the two blogs separate because I want to keep this one anonymous- I NEED to keep this one anonymous so I can vent. So, I must ask you- if you don't already know our identities and happen to figure it out at any time- please keep it to yourself and don't post on our other blogs, or Facebook pages.
My mother is watching.
~Lucy
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