healing takes a lot of time

i've been working on a project where i am archiving all of my family's photos. it's been intense - a journey through their lives from the 1890s up until now. i just got through the end of the 70's, and it took me 7 months to work up the nerve to really start scanning the year of my parent's marriage. seeing photos of them together is still weird and it leaves me wondering more and more about what my mother was like back then. it's so much easier to imagine my father in his late 20's. my mother is such a more difficult puzzle to put together.

she was so beautiful, and young, and fresh. these photos don't remind me at all of the woman i knew as a child or as an adult now. it's so obvious that my father loved her to distraction. how hard it must have been for him too...

mental illness is such a beast. it steals the ones you love so completely if they go untreated. i would have loved to know this woman in the photos - i bet she was amazing.

but that's the thing about photos right? they only capture the good and the great moments. they rarely catch the beast within, or the fights i knew my parents had. photos can lie.

mother's day #10 without her.

i've survived the day.

slowly, over a lot of years, this feeling of survival has become more difficult to detect. 10 years ago, when we were in the middle of her spiral and her eventual (and sadly temporary) incarceration, it was raw rage. grief. sadness. i couldn't make it through the day without drinking or going fetal on the bed for the afternoon.

over the years, it's taken different paths. i'd work the entire day just to keep myself busy. i'd spend it with my grandmother, who spent decades filling in for my mother in my life. the last few years have been the "easiest", i guess. i've found it harder to remember exactly how many years it's been since i've seen her, or how long it's been since we had a conversation.

but i know this is absolutely mother's day #10 without her.

it's so strange to watch people's Facebook messages on mother's day. it's hard for us motherless daughters. maybe if i had kids of my own, i wouldn't hate this fucking holiday, but i don't. i have nothing to distract me other than the thought that i'm a heck of a cat momma, and my employees are my kids in many ways. my job has been my sanctuary for all these years, and today i wasn't there.

no, today was a different routine.

i spent mother's day with my boyfriend and his mother. i bought her a bracelet. i couldn't help myself. it was the first time in a decade where i felt like i had someone to do that for. (looking back on this, i should've sent my grandmother a card. tomorrow.) i was almost giddy about it. this overwhelming thought of, "i have someone to celebrate this year!" and even though she is not my mother-in-law (yet, at least) and we still don't know each other well, she has taken me into her arms and hugged me so hard that i almost cried. she has texted to see how i'm feeling, and made me feel like a part of her family. and every bone in my body is just praying so hard that someday i will actually be her daughter-in-law. i had always hoped that someday i'd meet the right guy, and that he'd have a mother that i could love as my own. i know that i have. i am so in love with him, and all i dream about anymore is our lives together.

i'm so terrified it will all go away again. i'm praying so hard that they never go away.

i made it through most of the day without talking about my mother. my boyfriend brought it up and i shrugged it off defensively, as i usually do. we took a nap in the afternoon, and he had me in his arms, and i started crying but he didn't notice (thank goodness.) i didn't want to explain why. it was a private thought. it was a moment i will always remember - because i felt so safe, so lucky, so happy, and so heartbroken over her.

look at how strong i am. look at how much i've grown in 10 years. would she even recognize me? would i recognize her?

this guilt just never goes away.

my brother put up a photo of his wife and mother-in-law today and said that they were the most important mothers in his world. isn't it funny how we both have latched on to our significant other's moms? not funny. not the right word. i can't even put into words how unfair it seems to me. we have been cheated out of a life with our mother, and the fact that we do everything we can to fill that void with women who mean something to us just shows how hurt we are. hurt little kids missing their mommy.

i wonder what she did today. who she was with. did she go out, or stay in? i have no idea. i don't really want to know.

i just want my boyfriend here and his arms around me so i can feel safe again. i don't feel safe right now. i feel scared and lonely and sad. i can't believe it's been 10 whole years. it feels like a lifetime.

being motherless - not by death, but by choice - is a special kind of torture, and it just never seems to heal up right.

she's still in my head today.

you did not break me
i'm still fighting for peace

well i've got thick skin and an elastic heart
but your blade it might be too sharp

and i will stay up through the night
let's be clear, i won't close my eyes
and i know that i can survive
i walked through fire to save my life.

emotional crossroads.

my brother and i talk about my mother sporadically. tonight was apparently one of the nights that we had a sorta serious discussion, even though it lasted for about 5 minutes. it went something like this:

him: "i haven't heard from mom lately."
me: "i haven't either."
him: "i'm starting to feel really bad about it. like it just feels so wrong."
me: "i know what you mean."
him: "it felt wrong 5 years ago."
me: "yeah but i was a lot angrier 5 years ago. i needed the space."
him: "well she's getting older. she's too tired to keep up with the antics. yeah, there's risks. but she doesn't even know her oldest grandchild."
me: "at some point, one of us is going to have to go up there. probably me. i mean, she's just going to be a nuisance if she's back in our lives."
him: "yeah, but i can handle it. you can handle it. the kids can't."

and that was kinda it.

i think we are realizing that she is truly aging. the raw rage that we had is fading, and it's coming to a point where we are going to have to make some kind of decision.

what in the world are we going to do?

neither of us want the financial or emotional burden of dealing with her shit. but neither of us want her dying alone and unloved. and i think that's what i'm coming to terms with. i do love her. i always have. it hasn't always felt like it, but it's the love that can't be broken between a parent and a child. i really don't want her back in my life. it's so peaceful, and so nice, without her.

what in the world are we going to do?

we are at an emotional crossroads - two healed little kids, who were once so broken, heartbroken, and angry, are now coming to terms with the reality of cutting their mother out of their lives. did we truly mean for it to be forever? did i? did i really mean it?

are the risks as bad as i think they are? or have i healed enough to test them? i'm scared. i'm really scared to let her back in.

would i rather live with guilt, or regret? either way, it feels like shit. and either way, i can't fix her. if i let her back in my life, it would be solely for her benefit. not ours. not mine. is that enough of a reason?

whirlwind romance.

i'm in love. in love, in love, in love, with a wonderful man. he came out of nowhere, and creeped into my life and my heart like a thief in the night. we were set up by his sister, years after she had first told me about him. out of stupid fear, i had said no before. he lived too far away. he probably didn't like curvy girls. he couldn't possibly like me. how could anyone?

and now he's such a huge part of my life.

he makes me want to be more. be better. heal and grow. take on the world. embrace a new chapter in my life.

i'm terrified he'll disappear. i had a dream the other night where he left me for another woman. someone older, and uglier. i woke myself up crying.

i've never been so scared, or happy, or grateful, in my life.

i want him wrapped up in every part of me. i want his heartbeat next to mine all night. i want his arms around me when i come home. i want hazel-eyed ginger children.

my life suddenly feels so full of possibility that i feel impatient. my therapist has told me to stay patient, stay calm, and enjoy this ride. but the little kid in me, so abandoned and so lost, is screaming for stability and control. i'm having trouble telling that little kid to listen. i just want to start my real life already.

there and back again

i was free, i thought. i had banished so many demons to the past. i had felt like i conquered the world. i was on the right path. i was careful in the goals i was setting.

i fell back into old patterns. i overwhelmed myself back into sleeping all day. she sent an email invite to see her photos online, and i barely dealt with it at all... let alone dealt with it well. her face started to haunt my dreams again. i started to call my father all the time.

i ate like crap, and gained weight.

and inch by inch, nail scratch by scratch, i continue to pull myself out and away from the abyss. i've fought too hard to allow this. i've done too much work to let myself say "fuck it" and fall back.

i'm not where i was. but i'm holding on. i'm holding on so hard.

tethered.

she must have a spiritual connection with me... a cosmic string tethered between my heart and hers. i received a letter from her today. after worrying that something was wrong, this shows up in the mail:

"dear xxxxxx:
i developed this address for you as above online. besides that, nosy databases state that you are friends with "XXXXXXX", a neighbor. Well, good for you!

yes, i know several years ago you stated that you didn't want future contact with your mom: me. i just find that hard to accept because i loved you so.

one last try to put things right between us. i'd like to see you and talk things over. i'm free in august and could travel down by bus. i'd like to ask whether you'd consider letting me stay over for one night at least. i'm a rather poor person without assets. still, i've prospered enough to pay for a round trip bus fare. no, i do not have plans to move south. i could never afford to without help on a regular basis.

as for the rest, i'm really quite healthy these days, xxxxxxx. healthy and normal. i've been working for the past five years. i have a credible life. please share it with me. i am now 63. perhaps you might recall that i was your wet nurse. and that i loved you very much.

i broke ties with the past and began a new life under a new name. it's been rather good for me. i am very alone and sad about it. i care about you. i am also curious about what you have done in the past eight years. so, please write back and give me permission to visit you in august. it might be august 7th until the 9th.

all my best,
xxxxxxxxxxx."

letters from her like this make me uneasy. there's a reason i didn't open them when they would arrive. nothing good comes of me reading them. at best, they make me more angry. at worst, they make me feel like shit.

either way, i file them away for another time... maybe for another life. my mother, as i knew and loved her, is dead and gone. this woman - she is not my mother. she is a stranger, trapped in a psychotic world of hallucinated realities, and while her words might seem otherwise, i know it is all a front. she is not medicated. she is not well. and i am not ready to let her into my life.

maybe that makes me an asshole. or selfish. i like to think of it as the purest form of self-preservation.