Member-only story
The Last Birthday Dinner I Ever Made
A horror story from the past that has refused to die
First, The Dream
A couple weeks ago, I had one of those dreams that made me sit up and take notice. It was so vivid, and I remember it so clearly. I knew my subconscious was trying to tell me something. In this one, I was in the kitchen at work. I had just made a bunch of taco salads. Then these two women barged into the kitchen and said, “We don’t want the ones you made. We want to make our own.” They were really snooty about it and pushed me out of the way. I felt insulted, rejected. I had put in all this work, and they belligerently refused it.
When I woke up, that feeling of dismissal only deepened, and I was plunged into one of the major themes of my life — nobody ever wants it from me. Whatever “it” happened to be at any given moment — time, attention, food, praise, a listening ear, advice, comfort — I was firmly, violently refused.
Oh, it wasn’t always like that. When my children were babies, they clung to me and turned to me for their every need, as is normal. But by the time they were three or four years old they pulled away, in a way that was anything but normal. They wanted nothing to do with me. They were afraid of me. They rejected every attempt to get near them. I became an unwelcome intruder…
