Instigating Phone Call?

It was 4:30 in the am and my damn phone started ringing. At first I thought I was dreaming, but then I felt poor Indy almost fly out of bed because of the abrupt wakeup call. I reached over, half asleep, and answered my water bottle. By the time I realized that there was nobody on the other end of the water bottle, the phone stopped ringing. I just threw the water bottle off to the side and cuddled up next to Indy again. I immediately started falling asleep. Two seconds after I started drifting off into to dreamland, the phone rang again. I reached over and answered the phone but quickly realized it wasn’t the landline that someone was calling. It took me a few tries, but I finally found my cell phone on the nightstand. When I answered it, I heard my mother’s voice on the other end of the line.

“Tina! Why haven’t you called?! We haven’t heard from you in over two weeks! What’s wrong with you?! The last time we heard from you was when you left our place and that was over two weeks ago! Something could’ve happened to your plane we wouldn’t have known about it! You could be dead and we wouldn’t even know about it! Tina, what’s wrong with you?! You haven’t even called any of your brothers and sisters in the past two weeks either! Tina?! Tina?!?! Tina?!?!?! Are you listening to me?!”

My instincts told me to hang up the moment I heard her voice, but I didn’t. I just listened to her while a million things went through my head. I wondered why my mother would be upset about not hearing from me in two weeks. When my parents unexpectedly moved to New York, I didn’t hear from them at all. I didn’t hear from them for months. If I hadn’t gone to New York to find them, I would still have no idea if they were even alive. So, her being mad at me for not contacting them after getting back home made absolutely no sense at all. I didn’t call because I gave up with calling. Whenever I called my parents or siblings, they never answered. I left a message every time, and they never called me back. So, why was she so upset? I really didn’t make any sense to me. I’m the one that should’ve been upset. First of all, it was 4:30 in the morning. Second of all, this was the first time she was calling me since they moved to New York. Third of all, the last time I talk to her was in their spiffy apartment/condo thing in New York where she revealed that she had wanted to end my life before I had even started it. I was thankful she didn’t, and I really wasn’t angry at her for it, but I was angry about her calling me at 4:30 in the morning to yell at me.

All this exploded through my head at once in one very painful headache. Did I say any of what was going through my head? No. I just said, “I’m fine mom.” That was it. I figured why mess up the progress she was making. What progress was this? Well, despite everything, this was the first time she had actually picked up the phone and called me since she left. Yes, she was calling to yell at me because she was mad, but that didn’t change the fact that she was calling. I know a lot of people would’ve probably hung up or started yelling back, but I didn’t see the point. My relationship with her was delicate enough as it was (especially since it was pretty much shattered when I talked to her in New York), so why mess it up more.

Once she finished her senseless yelling, she said she was late for work and hung up. This lovely phone “conversation” got me thinking. I lost my desire to sleep and went to the living room to think so Indy could sleep without further interruption. Before I started my contemplating, I made a giant pot of coffee. Delicious, over caffeinated, addictive coffee. On my way to the living room with my mouthwatering coffee, I grabbed a blanket. I wrapped myself up and started sipping… and thinking.

I didn’t want to focus on the fact that my parents wanted to… get rid of me. It was clear that they hadn’t wanted anymore children and they would’ve done it if they had come to each other sooner with it. It hurts me to think about it, but the important thing is that they let me live. I snapped myself out of it because I didn’t want to think about it. Next thought. I started thinking about my mother’s Postpartum Depression. Did my family really blame me for making my mom sick? Yes. My brother had blurted it out, and my parents had confirmed it. I felt sorry that they felt that way, but I didn’t understand why they held it against me. Did this always happen with the children of Postpartum depression? Everyone always talks about the mother who is suffering through it. I can understand why, but no ever seems to talk about the children. What happens? Does the child become more loved because of it or cast aside like I was (and still am). I know my family is uniquely and insanely dysfunctional, but I’m sure there’s at least someone else out there like me (or at least going through a similar case like me). Do they despise their family because of the way they’re being treated? I know I don’t. I love my family (despite the way they treat me), and nothing can change that. Does that make me a freak of some kind?

I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t notice Indy when he came out of the room. He sat down next to me and nearly scared me half to death when he reached over to get a sip of my coffee. I wondered why on earth he was up at 5:30 since he didn’t have to work for another six hours or so. He explained that he couldn’t sleep because he knew something was bothering me and he didn’t want to go through it alone. We talked for a while and then he went out to get breakfast so I wouldn’t have to cook. He brought back breakfast from McDonald’s. Days like today make me really glad I have Indy.