A lot of people say, “appreciate the people you have in your life”, but how can I appreciate someone who’s ruined me? Make me treat people with no love, with no compassion? Just made me into someone I don’t want to be, a hateful, sinful person. How could I appreciate a human being like that? Sad part is, it’s a family member. People say “at least you have two parents, some don’t know their mom or dad, or have had a parent die.” I guess people don’t understand how it is to have a mother that only cares about herself. There might be some love in her little heart for her children; somewhere deep down inside, but it’s only come to surface maybe once.
Uptightness runs in our family. My mom tries to be better than everyone else and tries to look better than everyone. So uptight about everything she does. No matter how much it takes, she wants people to look at her and say “I wish I lived her life”. She buys the most expensive jewelry; she sprays the most expensive perfume on her shriveled up skin; she buys the most expensive make-up to cover up the dark marks she has on her cheeks. Yeah I admit the makeup makes her look a lot younger, a lot more “pretty”, but she sure isn’t pretty on the inside.

“I hate this. Driving back and forth every day for you kids! Pi**es me off!” she said that every morning, but this morning turned into something way worse.
“I’m sorry mom...”, quivers out of me.
“I hate driving every morning. If you just lived with me and not your father I wouldn’t spend so much of my money on you guys. Ugh. I hate you for making me do this.”
It was a lot different from other days because this day was my 10th birthday. Finally double digits!  I thought it was going to be one of the best birthdays ever. But no, instead of spending it with my dad, I spent it with the wicked witch. She never even said sorry for saying what she said me. Looked me straight in the face and said that to me on my birthday. How could she do that?
That might not seem like a big deal to people. “She’s just upset she didn’t mean it.” “I bet she’s over exaggerating the story.” “Your mom loves you no matter what.” I got so sick and tired of people saying those things to me. My mom got even worse after she married Chuck LeCrone, a wealthy electrician. She ended up having a baby with him. I thought it’d be a good thing. Maybe I wouldn’t have to go to her house and could just stay at my dad’s if she as too busy with the baby. But the exact opposite happened. She was so exhausted with having a new baby that my eleven year old brother and I had to make dinner for everyone. Chuck would say he was at work all day and that we didn’t do anything except go to school so we had to make dinner for everyone. Mom would get mad and say that nobody would help her around the house so Reggie and I had to do
the dishes. We babysat her, fed her, and especially cared for her, since it didn’t seem like mom did. But it was different with my little baby sister, Charlee, she had my mom’s genes. She was blonde, blue eyed, and petite. My mom loved how she looked just like her. So of course, since my mom wanted to make herself look better than everyone else, Charlee was dressed in the most expensive clothes and got the nicest shoes. Charlee was mom’s prize possession. I have a fine example of this.
“Who are you texting?”
“Just my friend Dakota.”
“So a boy?”
“Yessss mom.”
“Let me see your phone, Marissa.”
“Why?”
“Because I said.”
“No, mom. You can’t see my phone.”
“I’m your mother. Give me your phone.”
“You always say I’m not your daughter! That I’m my dad’s kid!”
“You’re right. All I need is Charlee. I could care less about you and what you do.”

That was really just a really long story short. A lot more was said then just that, but number one, it’s nbot appropriate for school, and number two, there are things that happened that night that I really don’t think a lot of people should know about. She never even apologized to me. I can’t look at her anymore without thinking about everything that happened that night. It was wild and kept me up until four o’clock in the morning. The worst part is, we were on vacation. It was supposed to be a great time but instead it was the worst night of my life. Now I just see her maybe once a month, I can’t stand how she doesn’t love me like Charlee. I’ll never really know what I did to deserve someone like that in my life, but I did. So I deal with it. I tell myself that at least I have someone to call “mom”.