Eloquent as Fuck
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT Sara
  • Portfolio
  • What I'm Doing NOW
  • BLOG
  • ABOUT Sara
  • Portfolio
  • What I'm Doing NOW

MY BLOG HAS MOVED!!
JUST CLICK HERE AND YOU CAN GO THERE.

What I Never Told My Mother was What She Needed to Hear.

5/7/2016

3 Comments

 
Picture
It begins every February. So soon after the holidays. All the dates throughout the year that remind me that my parents are gone. It has been about ten years since my mom passed. I have come to love her more and more since she died, understand her more thoroughly, and appreciate her genius with each new experience. 

Mom was a fighter. She was a rabble rouser. Very often, she was the loudest and crudest person in the room, and damn proud of it. She, like my father, wanted me to have kids. That was her dying wish to me. It was the last time I had the opportunity to laugh in her face. Not in a cruel way, mind you, but more at the boldness of her guilt trip. The laughter was my way of handling my surprise that even as she sat on the edge of death, she was still attempting manipulation.

I think she also knew that if I gave in, and maybe told her I would even consider it, it would have been a big step toward forgiveness. From the time I was sixteen, my mother and I battled; her guilt and my defiance would set the stage for our relationship until she died. After my step brother sexually abused me, my mother carried that around with her. She brought it up all the time; that he had written her an apology letter, that she should have known better, that she still felt bad about it. But I never could let her off the hook.  But it was not about the abuse as much as it was about what made me vulnerable to it.

My mom was loved by so many. Her funeral was chock full of people wondering how they would go on without her. Some of them even said as much to me. I wasn't exactly still angry when she died, but I wasn't really upset that she had gone either. My mom had been in some form of pain for as long as I had known her. My first memories of her are of her crying in the dark. I felt that her death was a release from the pain with which she had always wrestled.

​She grew into an adult having to hide who she was. She was a Jewish Lesbian at a time before it was hip. Before it was even safe. My mom had to deal with a world that would not accept her, and this must have reminded her daily of the way she was treated as a child. 

But it has been ten years since she died, along with her pain, and I just had a stunning emotional episode stemming from my sexual abuse. Over the course of the last three or four gruelling, tear-filled days, I re-evaluated in a way that has exhausted me. I had new insights into why I have chosen this path for myself, why I am in an open relationship, and how I choose to love and not to love. I have had to look at all the similarities in my present relationship and the one I had with my mom. And it scares the shit out of me.

This is the darkness before the bright light of hope emerges on the horizon. This is the time where I am living in my shit, and wading through it in order to transcend. And it is, of course, Mother's Day.  There is no way I can live my life without letting this holiday effect me. I know my mother loved me. I know she wanted me. I also know she was ill-equipped to raise me.

My mother could not make the requisite sacrifices necessary to raise humans. How the hell could she? She never got the message that she was astounding. No one who held any role of importance in her life ever communicated to her what a beautiful fucking genius she was. I could tell because she was clearly not aware of it. If she saw herself as the earth-shaking beautiful and brilliant change maker that she was, the pain that would eventually strangle and kill her would never have taken purchase.

This, unfortunately, is my guilt. I never told her. I was awed by my mother. I was astounded by her spirit. I see her in so many of the women I talk to; the women who were never told. The women who were not told for so long, that it became almost impossible for them to believe once it was spoken. I could never see past my own pain to let her know.

Over the last few days it has come to me that I was vulnerable to my abuser because I so desperately needed to feel love. I had for so long felt flawed, unloved, and unwanted that I came to a point where I would do anything to get it.  It was also my mother's desperation for love which put me at risk. She wanted love so badly that she agreed to make her only daughter vulnerable. I hate knowing this becuase on some level, it has kept me from having kids. I never wanted to find my desperation for love at the root of the pain of my child.

I wish more than anything that I could let go of this, but as of today, I am still hanging on. I am still stuck in the place where I barely believe you when you tell me that you love me. I am still in the place that if you tell me I am beautiful, I think it is because you want something. 

I have forgiven my mother.  I have let all of that anger go. I am now just hoping that with the dawn and the approaching horizon, will also come some sort of release.



​I totally get if you don't want to share this today. Kind of a downer, I know.

3 Comments
kelly
5/7/2016 09:51:44 pm

Sara, very brave post. love, love, love, kelly

Reply
Sara Young link
5/7/2016 10:05:52 pm

Thank you so much Kelly. It was a stretch and definitely a challenge. I am happy that you got something out of it..

Reply
Denise
5/8/2016 09:58:34 pm

Thank you for writing and sharing this. You put into words so many feelings and thoughts that I have been having about my childhood and mother. Also the fear I have about giving enough to my son.

Reply



Leave a Reply.

    A Love Rebellion.

    Picture
    Be a part of A Love Rebellion. Spread love, hope and compassion.

    Picture










    ​THE SELF LOVE WORKSHOP IS OPEN ON ETSY! Click here to go THERE.

    Artist Website

    Only the highlights from my creative life. Just click on the image.
    Picture

    Get your FREE confidence tips list here! Just sign up below.

    * indicates required
    Picture

    Most Popular

    • Cake Doesn't Give a Fuck
    • On Jealousy
    • Taking Risks
    • Surprising Yourself
    • What Would You Rather Be Doing?
    • What My Clothes Have Always Told Me.


    Support the Work.

    My work is supported by my readers. If you feel like you get something out of this every week, and you feel you are able, a $3 to $15 monthly subscription will help me bring you all the ass-kicking content possible. Thanks so much for your support.
    Support the Work.

    RSS Feed

    Archives

    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014

Powered by Create your own unique website with customizable templates.