I can say with great confidence that becoming a mother has been my greatest privilege…..
“I make no apologies for how I try to fix what you broke” – with regard to my path all these years with love.
I barely stood a chance with this hand and I have played the hell out of it. Hurt people do hurt people and I am no exception.
Holidays are tough for me. No secret there. Those closest to me know my battle intimately and I’m so grateful for the ones who do. I’m invited and wrapped warmly in a variety of ways with other family’s and have had the privilege to know and learn so much from so many.
This Mother’s Day is particularly difficult for me. I have a broken heart and as a result of being consumed am being hard on myself on who I’ve been lately as a Mom. Guilt about disappointing them again.
Feeling lost does not really go very well with owning the place you deserve in the world. I know there is a discrepancy here, but right now I don’t have the energy to sort it.
This morning I have waded through the options on what to write about. As thoughts of my own experience with a mother bring a fresh bout of tears I think of writing that, perhaps it will come later.
My beautiful friend is visiting. She’s sharing some of her wounds with me. It eases my own. Her particular survival has involved her accepting love way less than worthy of her efforts, her self and needs not even in the equation, as she shares with me about how she hasn’t been held in twelve years, and that she needs that.
Twelve years. My God twelve days is excruciating for me. I know how healing the power of touch and connection can be, and how devastating as well.
People who do the best they can are a thing of beauty. Be careful with people you never know when someone is doing the best they can. That often looks like things that could easily be judged. When wounds are invisible healing is so much more challenging. When there is no story for what’s happening that makes sense.
People need their story to make sense and to be tailored and fair to the wounds they carry. Unfortunately that’s uncommon. It’s one of the things I have the privilege to do for others, and am finding I need to include myself. It’s no longer enough to heal others, I need to feel worthy of healing too.
My mind goes to not having anyone to help the kids do something special for me for Mother’s Day, and I get sad before I think about people I know whose Mothers still demand unreasonable things of them or punish them for their own wounds. I am grateful I’ve healed enough to not do that.
Those feelings pass and I return to gratitude hanging onto all the nice things people do for me, or even a text of those I’ve helped on their journey through life. Appreciation for me, and I warm back up. It’s not really grand gestures on a single day that makes the difference it’s the showing up. And this past few weeks so many people have shown up for me, random flowers, help with my lawn, texts, encouraging that I am seen. And that always has to be bigger than the pain and loss. But since love is very different for me this isn’t always the case.
Lately I haven’t shown up very well for my kids, and I’ll be careful to be kind to myself about this. I’ve had a lot of loss recently, and so have they. I have an idea of the mother I want to be, but lately I feel as if all the air has been taken right out of me. And it’s all I can take it to get out of bed.
My priories are all out of whack and originally that was in the name of love, but now as I watch everyone else make sure their priorities are in tact, I simply will learn from them. I need to do that too. And I’m all my kids have their everything. And this my own doing. It’s unfortunate all too often I feel too guilty and unworthy of that space so I stay isolated. I want closeness with them but I don’t know how with that other safe adult buffer to make sure nothing happens.
In my life something bad could happen at any moment. And another safe adult around makes that feeling less. It’s just always been my truth. I wish I could be one of those moms that isn’t like that. It’s how I learned to survive, finding a space that felt safe, which was never inside of me, because outside of me was never safe. My whole childhood.
Not only was it physically dangerous but it was a mental game of manipulation and terror.
Like I’ll hurt or damage them somehow just by breathing. If you knew what it had been like with my mother, if you knew is all I can say here.
But excuses are unacceptable when it comes to finding the worthiness to accept their love enough to show up near them. It is non-negotiable.
I have always kept another adult present as much as possible just in case I somehow morphed into my mother, in case too many bad things still lingered on me. To breathe enough life back into me by holding me at night, so I could face the next day. And this last time I chose one of the best humans I’ve ever met.
And then my own emptiness inside led me to destroy that. Trying to fill empty holes when there is no end to the holes, so nothing can collect. Nuclear sized craters all around. I am amidst the sheer devastation of myself and I don’t want them down with me.
So I hide at the bottom of the hole curled up hoping for some light. And then I dig and I build and a rush for relief and it’s momentary, never stable. Leave the healthy people alone my dark thoughts scathe. Leave well enough alone.
Momentary fixes to long standing issues only create craters. This post apocalyptic hell is inside and all around me right now.
When you’re in survival mode you don’t see anything clearly until later. I’m permanently wired in survival mode, doing the best I can. That will always be the truth of the matter.
I’m an adult in survival mode that can be so incredibly healing to others, but for herself, she is lost.
I am lost, and I need to find myself….
I don’t need to be seen or found or loved anymore. I’ve been loved well and I rush right around life looking for a chaos that feels like home. If I wanted to be loved well I would have stayed right where I was.
I’ve had plenty of brave batters step up to that plate. I’ve never felt worthy enough to be still enough to see what happens outside of the scary, or boring period that inevitably comes. I bail one way or another before I can lose anything. You can’t lose anything you never let sink in.
I need to be able to see the person in the mirror that other people see. My long standing people who stay in my life, seek my wisdom, provide warmth and love…. they see me. So I am not unseen.
Most of my life I spend afraid everything I love will be taken, or worse damaged by me….. and then I create exactly that.
So when you’ve found yourself in a self fulfilling prophecy that’s come full circle, and you’re all alone with yourself, the only thing to do is slowly form a relationship with her. And hope that you’ve traveled far enough that this time it’s a healthy one.