OUT OF REACH

     eva hesse, fishing nets

It's been wearing me out thinking about my mother's adamantine opinion system in relation to me. In relation to everybody else, I don't care about. I've known all the way along what would happen if she ever found out I don't see religion like she does. I've always let her believe I see it just like she does, because that's the only way to peace with her. I wish you'd find a church to go to. I know you do. It doesn't matter what I say. I will hear that remark every time I talk with her until I get with her and tell her to stop bringing it up, because I'm not ever doing it. Like the instant I'm out of high school, When you gonna get married? When you gonna get married? When you gonna get married? Ok, so I get married and shut her up. Next: When you gonna have a baby? When you gonna buy a house? Later, after the divorce, When you gonna get married again? When you gonna get married again? Finally, a couple years ago I got her off of, I wish you'd find a church to go to, and now I've started it up again. Now she's wanting me to believe in Satan. I don't believe in Satan enough.


Sorry, mommy, that's the tipping point. Years of relentless, focused interrogation that never ends was over and I got it going again. Now it's worst of all. I don't believe in Satan enough. Controlling others comes from the mind, not the heart. All my life, she's believed she has controlled me, because I allowed it. This comes under teaching me to lie. You agree with all the nonsense preachers put in her head and she leaves you in peace. To stand up for self even the least little bit is reprehensible, subject to punishment. In this couple weeks of articulating the patterns of her control, I've learned quite a lot and liberated myself somewhat. Back in the 1990s when I went to a psychotherapist, the primary purpose was to find out what it was within that attracted me to controlling women. Time after time I'd get in with a controlling woman. I felt like I knew how to handle it; agree and go my own way. It doesn't always work out that way. I found that when I allowed a controlling woman to believe she controlled me, there always came a day she would push me further than I was willing to go. When I balked, all hell broke loose. The mule. End of relationship or friendship or acquaintance. I've learned now to let it be known up front upon getting acquainted; if you're looking for somebody to control, don't stop here.


I learned that it really does work when I note first evidence of intent to control, to put a stop to it at the start. No, I am not available for control. That's it, cat shit. No more problem. The deal then was that I found myself attracted to a particular woman for whatever the reason, I'd see she needed to take control and would let her think she was in charge of me, until one day the mule sits down. Not taking your orders anymore. Had enough. Then it's, you're this, you're that, the blame game. Since I've learned how to steer controlling women away from me, I live in much greater peace than before. When one signals that she wants me under her control, I let her know in one way or another suitable to the circumstance, I'm not a subject suitable for control. I've got my own ways, I'm a stubborn taurus ass, I don't do what I'm told, don't perform PC, don't follow the crowd, never fulfill other people's expectations, don't give a shit about appearances. I follow my own light, and that's it. I let her know if she wants to control me, she's in for more than she's up to. I've been through so much punishment that threat of punishment makes me laugh. I'm so alienated from mother, who has spent her life pushing me away, threat of alienation means nothing.


In that way, I feel liberated. Threat of punishment means nothing. This must be why I was brave enough to let it be known I don't see it her way. Now that I see the problem is not that I don't believe in Jesus enough, but that I don't believe in Satan enough, I am really out of control. Like I told her in my reply, I'll leave the devil to you. She also confirmed what I've known without fully believing it, that her control issues don't come from above, but from below. Her emphasis on Satan is shining through. It confirms what I've known about the Baptist belief system, that it is more about the dark side than the light side. It's about division, not unity. They look at people the same way black urban gangstas do, as mushrooms. If they're not saved, they're the same as already dead. If they are saved and they don't go to your church, they're about the same as not saved. If they're of another religion, they're the same as dead. "A dead substance." Like the silly preacher from Louisiana saying he went to heaven and didn't see any Asians except for Asian babies from abortions. That is the ignoramus level of the Baptist belief system I cannot go with. I can take much more, but that degree of ignorance is insulting to anyone who hears it.


It feels odd at 70 to be fussing over mother issues like on the psychiatric couch. I've an idea it came up because I needed it to come up, to clear it out, be done with it, tie up loose ends inside myself. I feel that aspect of it working. It is articulating a lot for me. I've realized in the last couple weeks that I've been afraid of mother's reaction to being disagreed with. That would, of course, spread beyond her into a pattern inside me that would cringe from the reaction of disagreement. I pretended to agree. Now she's found out I don't revere Satan as much as I'm supposed to to be acceptable to her preacher, somebody I don't even want to meet. Last time I met one of her preachers I didn't even talk with him. He didn't show me anything as a human being. He was like a salesman or somebody working in a corporate funeral home. He already knew from my mother I was intractable.


I let myself be the elephant in the room, the son that lived someplace else and doesn't go to church enough. I found right away my presence made him uncomfortable, so I let him soak in it. He symbolized so much for me that I dislike intensely, about all I did was sit and glare at him, not in the obvious redneck way, but the way that said I'm looking at you, but not seeing you. Now I'm not only damned from above, but damned from below too. I hear D-generation wailing NO WAY OUT. Well, there is a way out. Walk away. Blame and punishment, bring it on. I know where it's coming from, that it's egoic nonsense projected onto the blank screen called God. What ever.



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