(Written in May 2008)
We watched Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. I hadn’t realized that Ellen Burstyn was Vivi — current Vivi — she did a great job. There was also child Vivi and young mother Vivi. Made it a little hard to keep track. I enjoyed it, but was also stunned by it. Vivi was so alive — but she should never have had to care for 4 kids by herself. And she was never really allowed to mourn the loss of her childhood love. There was also the horrible scene with her own mother and the ring at her 16th birthday. And little Sidda, doing her best to help, and believing it was her fault when her Mama had a nervous breakdown and had to go away. That was never talked about. It was a great scene when one of the Ya-Yas tells her father to write a check to Sidda for all the years of therapy when she tried to figure out what she did wrong.
But I found Vivi lovable and forgivable. In contrast my own mother looks dead, selfish, stingy, concerned with her image. The scene where Vivi takes Sidda back for the ride on the plane that she’d funked the first time: Mother would have just made me wrong. Mother wasn’t like Vivi, she was like Vivi’s mother, stunted. Stunted because she wasn’t properly nourished, because she was confined by a cage of oppressive ideals. I’d like to find my way to forgiveness of Mom, but at the moment I’m just angry at her for being narrow and damaged, and not fighting it. I fought all my life and finally won. Mother just drank. And made nasty remarks about anyone who expressed the aliveness she had repressed in herself and was jealous of. I am ashamed of her.
[This was written in 2008. I say I’ve “finally won” but I had at least one more bout with disabling PTSD. In some ways the worst. I wouldn’t say “I’ve won” now. My life is a continual struggle to stay balanced.]