I often get a lot of people emailing me about various posts that I submit on this blog, either responding to something that I’ve written or asking further questions about something that has peaked their curiosity. I enjoy receiving this feedback because, as a writer, it helps me to see where my writing leads people. Does it close the story or leave people hanging? In the publishing world, both are sought after in a writer (and being able to do both is even better!) but as the person doing the writing, I’m often so absorbed in the words that it’s hard for me to step back far enough to see where one story ends and the other begins.
This having been said, in recent months, I’ve had a lot of people write me to ask more about my relationship with my Mother. Obviously, I don’t write a lot about my Mother here. Much of the reason is because I knew that my Mother read my blog on a fairly regular basis and I always committed myself to not using this space to be hurtful to anyone (certainly not deliberately). In light of the current state of our relationship, I knew that could be done all too easily or at the very least, interpreted as such. Mostly though, I don’t know very much about my mother. I don’t know her very well as a person and I haven’t had a relationship with her in a really long time…so this doesn’t leave much to write about.
I’ve been realizing lately though that maybe this isn’t really true. Maybe there is a lot to be said in regards to that relationship but I don’t do so in order to cast aside certain feelings. Really what this means though is that I am compromising my own feelings in order to manage someone else’s…something that I’ve been doing for a very long time and needs to stop. This doesn’t mean that I am no longer forced to be objective about our relationship or even compassionate for that matter, but it does mean that for perhaps the first time in my life, I am realizing that my feelings have to matter as well.
My Mother and I were a great team when I was little. She raised an only child on her own and fully committed herself to giving a life better than the one she knew growing up. A notable and medal worthy task for any parent none the less a single one. She was fantastic and for all of her own troubles, distinctly found the way to infuse me with all the skills I would need to make it in this world. She is strong and creative and inspired and really wants to leave a beautiful mark on the world, which in my opinion, she already has. My Mother sacrificed a lot for me…maybe even too much. She basically sacrificed her entire entity into being a parent and left very little room for being anything else.
During the mid 90s, I moved to Ottawa to go to University, she moved out West for a new life and all the while, we basically walked away from our relationship, leaving it behind to wither and die like a plant that hasn’t been watered for too long. While the leaves still had a bit of life left in them, we did try to pick things up where they left off but the problem was that things change. People change. We changed. We changed so much that eventually, we were like two strangers walking in the world together. Not only had all the leaves on the plant died…but all the roots were gone as well. There was nothing left.
I struggled internally for a long time to accept the dwindling state of my relationship with my mother. Our final visit with one another, in early 2006, was devastating. Like most of our visits during the ten years prior to this one, it was filled with anger, judgment, resentment and criticism and it was during that visit that I uncovered my biggest source of unhappiness in regards to my mother; I realized what I disliked most when relating to my mother was me. I didn’t like my self in her presence. I didn’t like the person I would become and the emotions that I would feel every time she would reappear in my life. It became clear to me that parent/child relationships, especially ours, are very co-dependent and fragile. My mother did the very best that she could in raising me and her best was everything I needed as a little girl. The reality was though that we were no longer an only daughter and a single mother…we were adults and adult lives are about choices and having the courage to make the necessary choices. After my mother finally left to go back West, I spent nearly fourteen hours cleaning every square inch of our apartment and I made the most important decision that I’ve ever made; that I was no longer going to dislike myself ever again.
The months that followed were potentially the most emotionally grueling that I’ve ever endured. I cried almost every day for four months, even when I thought that there wasn’t a single tear left to shed. I wasn’t angry at my mother…I was grieving for myself. I was mourning the person that I never became because I had never learned how to let go of being anything but my mother’s daughter. There is such a danger in becoming the very essence of another person, even a person that you love and admire because we simply can’t live for each other. Nearly thirty years had passed and I was still making decisions to please someone that wasn’t even a part of my life anymore. I was making decisions to get the approval of other people…a driving force that can eat you alive if you let it.
Over the course of the years that followed, I learned more about myself than I had in the twenty-five years leading up to this moment. I was finally becoming me, a person that I had never really met before and the process has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. There has been a down side too though; as I broke away and learned to walk through this life as my own person, I also had to accept that my relationship with my mother was never going to be the same again, and that was very sad. I had to accept that our relationship, for the last ten years, was indeed unhealthy and that if it was ever to exist again, it had to become something different. Somehow, in the back recesses of our mind though, even the things that upset us the most can be hard to let go of because while they made be dysfunctional…at least they are something, which for some people, is better than nothing. And so it went…I mourned the death of a relationship that couldn’t be saved and with it, any anger and resentment that came along for the ride. It’s as though I woke up one day and suddenly realized that, without even noticing it, I had let go of her. Just like that, my existence was no longer tied to hers anymore and my life had begun to go on without her. It’s been nearly two and a half years now.
For so many years, I had fought with my mother for feeling like she was crossing and pushing my boundaries but during all that time…I had never bothered to set my boundaries with her in the first place. I was constantly getting angry for a line being crossed that I had never actually drawn in the sand. It’s just one of the things that I’m learning how to do in this new time, new place, as this new person. And so that’s where we stand…and that is why I don’t talk about my Mother too much here; in both of our transitions, we haven’t found a way to know each other again. Our paths have not only been unable to cross again, but they have actually gone in completely opposite directions. I don’t know the person that she is now or the person that she hopes to be. She doesn’t know who I am now or the person that I hope to be. It just goes to show that east doesn’t necessarily always meet west and that blood isn’t always thicker than water. In the meantime though, I talk about what I do know…holiday memories, childhood days spent in London and a time when we tackled the world together before the fate of parting ways took over.
If your path happens to be fortunate enough to cross hers…say hi to her for me…and tell her to let the phone ring twice, hang up and call again. She’ll know what it means.
This having been said, in recent months, I’ve had a lot of people write me to ask more about my relationship with my Mother. Obviously, I don’t write a lot about my Mother here. Much of the reason is because I knew that my Mother read my blog on a fairly regular basis and I always committed myself to not using this space to be hurtful to anyone (certainly not deliberately). In light of the current state of our relationship, I knew that could be done all too easily or at the very least, interpreted as such. Mostly though, I don’t know very much about my mother. I don’t know her very well as a person and I haven’t had a relationship with her in a really long time…so this doesn’t leave much to write about.
I’ve been realizing lately though that maybe this isn’t really true. Maybe there is a lot to be said in regards to that relationship but I don’t do so in order to cast aside certain feelings. Really what this means though is that I am compromising my own feelings in order to manage someone else’s…something that I’ve been doing for a very long time and needs to stop. This doesn’t mean that I am no longer forced to be objective about our relationship or even compassionate for that matter, but it does mean that for perhaps the first time in my life, I am realizing that my feelings have to matter as well.
My Mother and I were a great team when I was little. She raised an only child on her own and fully committed herself to giving a life better than the one she knew growing up. A notable and medal worthy task for any parent none the less a single one. She was fantastic and for all of her own troubles, distinctly found the way to infuse me with all the skills I would need to make it in this world. She is strong and creative and inspired and really wants to leave a beautiful mark on the world, which in my opinion, she already has. My Mother sacrificed a lot for me…maybe even too much. She basically sacrificed her entire entity into being a parent and left very little room for being anything else.
During the mid 90s, I moved to Ottawa to go to University, she moved out West for a new life and all the while, we basically walked away from our relationship, leaving it behind to wither and die like a plant that hasn’t been watered for too long. While the leaves still had a bit of life left in them, we did try to pick things up where they left off but the problem was that things change. People change. We changed. We changed so much that eventually, we were like two strangers walking in the world together. Not only had all the leaves on the plant died…but all the roots were gone as well. There was nothing left.
I struggled internally for a long time to accept the dwindling state of my relationship with my mother. Our final visit with one another, in early 2006, was devastating. Like most of our visits during the ten years prior to this one, it was filled with anger, judgment, resentment and criticism and it was during that visit that I uncovered my biggest source of unhappiness in regards to my mother; I realized what I disliked most when relating to my mother was me. I didn’t like my self in her presence. I didn’t like the person I would become and the emotions that I would feel every time she would reappear in my life. It became clear to me that parent/child relationships, especially ours, are very co-dependent and fragile. My mother did the very best that she could in raising me and her best was everything I needed as a little girl. The reality was though that we were no longer an only daughter and a single mother…we were adults and adult lives are about choices and having the courage to make the necessary choices. After my mother finally left to go back West, I spent nearly fourteen hours cleaning every square inch of our apartment and I made the most important decision that I’ve ever made; that I was no longer going to dislike myself ever again.
The months that followed were potentially the most emotionally grueling that I’ve ever endured. I cried almost every day for four months, even when I thought that there wasn’t a single tear left to shed. I wasn’t angry at my mother…I was grieving for myself. I was mourning the person that I never became because I had never learned how to let go of being anything but my mother’s daughter. There is such a danger in becoming the very essence of another person, even a person that you love and admire because we simply can’t live for each other. Nearly thirty years had passed and I was still making decisions to please someone that wasn’t even a part of my life anymore. I was making decisions to get the approval of other people…a driving force that can eat you alive if you let it.
Over the course of the years that followed, I learned more about myself than I had in the twenty-five years leading up to this moment. I was finally becoming me, a person that I had never really met before and the process has been one of the most incredible experiences of my life. There has been a down side too though; as I broke away and learned to walk through this life as my own person, I also had to accept that my relationship with my mother was never going to be the same again, and that was very sad. I had to accept that our relationship, for the last ten years, was indeed unhealthy and that if it was ever to exist again, it had to become something different. Somehow, in the back recesses of our mind though, even the things that upset us the most can be hard to let go of because while they made be dysfunctional…at least they are something, which for some people, is better than nothing. And so it went…I mourned the death of a relationship that couldn’t be saved and with it, any anger and resentment that came along for the ride. It’s as though I woke up one day and suddenly realized that, without even noticing it, I had let go of her. Just like that, my existence was no longer tied to hers anymore and my life had begun to go on without her. It’s been nearly two and a half years now.
For so many years, I had fought with my mother for feeling like she was crossing and pushing my boundaries but during all that time…I had never bothered to set my boundaries with her in the first place. I was constantly getting angry for a line being crossed that I had never actually drawn in the sand. It’s just one of the things that I’m learning how to do in this new time, new place, as this new person. And so that’s where we stand…and that is why I don’t talk about my Mother too much here; in both of our transitions, we haven’t found a way to know each other again. Our paths have not only been unable to cross again, but they have actually gone in completely opposite directions. I don’t know the person that she is now or the person that she hopes to be. She doesn’t know who I am now or the person that I hope to be. It just goes to show that east doesn’t necessarily always meet west and that blood isn’t always thicker than water. In the meantime though, I talk about what I do know…holiday memories, childhood days spent in London and a time when we tackled the world together before the fate of parting ways took over.
If your path happens to be fortunate enough to cross hers…say hi to her for me…and tell her to let the phone ring twice, hang up and call again. She’ll know what it means.
2 comments:
WOW Gen! This was intense! But nailed it all on the head, you know as better than anyone that she did her very best for you, but sadly enough blood is not always thicker than water! Your a very strong woman, and most inportantly you have God to lean on and hes more blood than you can ever ask for!
Well put Gen.
Jim
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