Inner Need & Irony

Everyone comes into this life differently. Some people come into this life, grow up, and live normal lives. They never do anything too special, just live through life and watch it as it passes by. Most importantly, that is okay with them. I have never been one of those people. I knew at a very young age my plans were very different from everyone else around me. I also learned early on that society doesn’t take well to people who think they are here for something greater than they are.

“You’ll never be able to do anything. You live in a fantasy world, none of that will ever happen.” These words still stir up emotions deep inside me that continuously rise to the surface. This was a common phrase I heard growing up from my mother. Psychology teaches us that the more negative phrases you hear, the more they become part of your psyche, law of attraction even. Such nonsense had quite the opposite effect on me. I just wanted to do great things even more so when I met with this kind of opposition.

It was March, 2005 when my boyfriend introduced me to the thought of publishing a novel. I hadn’t ever really been what you would call a writer. I could write, it just was not an activity I did for recreation. At the time, I had just come upon a wonderful story idea! It was one of the rare moments in my life I jotted down some sort of fiction storyline for something other than a paper in school. I had bought this birthday gift that had a fiery colored dragon encapsulated in a glass ball with a long, dark blue robed wizard standing next to it, looking in. The scene was so intriguing. It was as if the moment was frozen in time and was now on display. At that instant, I had a beginning and an ending to my story. What a wonderful thing it would be to have a publisher like my story, and accept it for publishing! Excited with possibilities, I decided to submit a query for my story. Outwardly, just for fun, to see what would happen. Inwardly, it was genuine curiosity.

Did I really have something good here? Would I really be able to do something that no one else I knew had done? After some back and forth emails, I was signing a contract. The date was fifth of July 2005, my twenty-first birthday. Out of pure excitement, and an inner need to prove myself, I was shouting out to the world of my grand accomplishment! Everyone I knew was on the receiving end of the glorious news! Yet still, in the wake of such a life changing event, there was a cloud of skepticism. My mother wrote it off as an everyday occurrence. Not as if it was actually something real, something tangible. Who cares that I signed a contract to publish a book at twenty one years old? No big deal, right? It was really beyond me why someone who was supposed to care so much about me, the one who birthed me, could be so blasé about something so important to me.

Someone wanted me in a published form! Why couldn’t she be proud of me?After the initial reaction, I decided to start keeping any developments of the process to myself. I didn’t need her to help me. I didn’t need her unfounded criticism misting over my train of thought. Finally, I had the chance to show her I was capable of more than she thought I was! I was going to show the world! Ten or twelve fourteen hour days in front of the ever long word screen on the computer, I sent in my complete manuscript! It was a special day as it was my boyfriend’s birthday! It was too much to keep to myself. I determined maybe I could allow my mother this one announcement. If anything would make her thrilled, this would be it! Knowing that my work would officially be in print would surely uplift the negativity. But, to my not so big surprise, it was just another passing moment that had no substance. A childish smile would appear on her face whenever she saw me, thinking how sad I must be to actually believe these things I keep telling myself. It made her laugh for her to hear my plans and how my life was going to unfold. What will it take for her to realize my potential?

After revisions and book cover acceptance, I was holding it! My novel, Iris: The Legend That Time Forgot, was in my hands! My book was ready to buy. The jumping and shouts of happiness seemed to last a lifetime! I was a published author! I could hold, touch and read my own words from my own book. It was a feeling I could never forget. How amazing was this? After a little showing off, a dark thought hit my brain. Would this mean anything? If I show it to my mother, what will she say? Wouldn’t she HAVE to acknowledge me now? Not necessarily, as I came to find out. Upon receiving her personally autographed copy, she threw it back in my face telling me she didn’t want it. It was a mixture of confusion and hurt that came flooding in. At that moment, I realized something. It wasn’t me she was mad at, or looking down on. It was herself. She was eaten up in jealousy. She was forty-four years old and had never held down a job longer than a year. She was living with her mother and had no money to her name. She had let me grow up in an abusive household and allowed terrible things to happen to me my entire life until I left at nineteen.

What was I trying to impress her for? She had never tried to make me happy. I couldn’t let myself continue to be eaten alive by something that I just couldn’t have, and that was her acceptance. I didn’t need it, I already proved to myself I was better than that and that I could do the great things I always felt I could. It was best that I stayed my distance for a while. Everyone else I knew was boiling over in excitement for me! Everyone wanted to know what was going to happen next! This was a really good time in my life. I had even moved on from the sadness of my mother and was busy promoting my book, working, and going to school. Things were really moving along nicely with book signings and promotions.

As life would have it, it wouldn’t be this way long. My mother somehow weaseled her way back into my life. She couldn’t hide from it anymore, I was successful. My eighteen year old brother, always her favorite, was at home. He had quit school and wanted nothing more than to be on his computer or out with his friends all the time. And I was the one she was looking down on? I think it was a long, difficult struggle for her to see what she had done and see why she was wrong. She now seemed interested in what I was doing. She wanted to be apart of it, be in the action. I wanted to stay mad, I wanted to turn her away and tell her to never talk to me again. But the inner need for acceptance overcame me and I thought it was time for forgiveness. Being angry with someone is like throwing hot embers at them. While they are in your hands, you’re really just burning yourself. It really isn’t hurting anyone but you.

I had one last talk with her about how she threw the book in my face. “I didn’t appreciate it,” I let her know. “Not that it matters anyway, I guess. After all, I do live in a fantasy world.” I gave her a snide look. She usually hates comments like that. She hates to think she was the one with the problem. She knew she was wrong all those years, I could see it in her face as she looked at the floor. After a moment of thought, she looked up at me and her response just made me laugh out loud.“Well, I guess it’s a good thing you live in a fantasy world, huh? If you didn’t live there, how could you write such a good book about it?”