Response 1

As of right now, I’m really pissed at Clarissa’s mother. I do not understand why she left and I feel like I need closure in order to feel sorry at all for the mother. It seems like the mother was a lonely woman, and lived a sad life, but she didn’t appreciate anything she had right in front of her. So because of that, even if she does have a sad story as to why she had to leave, I feel nothing towards her.
I am just totally baffled as to why any person would leave the people who love her most, leave the people she is supposed to love the most. That is probably a big border for me. I just don’t get it. The mother is totally unsatisfied with her love life; she leaves her first husband, she is kissing Mr. Wells (the theater man), and leaves another man who pampers her. She is also totally unsatisfied with her kids it seems, never paying the attention the children deserved. Lastly, she seems to never be content with one of her friends. I just don’t understand the mother, which I will say one hundred times over. A child never deserves to have someone leave them without at least a goodbye or explanation.
Another border that is hard for me to understand is the feeling she has when she first sees her father. I mean, I grew up with my father by my side at all times; I’m a complete daddy’s girl (which she appeared to be after her mom left and before her “other” dad died). However, now she is looking at her real father and I can’t even imagine how that would feel to want to know someone so bad, but at the same time, not wanting them to interrupt your life at all. I guess she does want him to interrupt her life since she went looking for him though.
I just don’t think her mother ever realized or decided to think of the consequences her actions would lead to. Because of sketchy mothering and hidden past, it has totally screwed up one of her children. Clarissa has to back track to the beginning just to figure everything out. I wonder if she is finding her real father because she wants to know her father or if she is really hoping to get some information on her mother; she obviously wants closure for her mother leaving like I do.