#...holy shit

My parents asked at one point (as I expected) if I’m involved with any churches. They were disappointed to hear my ‘no,’ asked if there were any I was interested in. I named a few, said that I just hadn’t gotten around to visiting them. But I also referred to the ending of my relationship with my last parish, the events of which are too long to get into here, but which they were familiar with. “I had to have some space after that. I’ve needed the time to be angry.”

Anger, I’m reluctantly learning, is an essential part of my healing.

I started pulling apart my understanding of my family and my relationship with my parents--most especially my mother--in grad school. Quite literally, in some senses; I pushed myself too hard one night and had self-awareness wash upon me so fast it felt like I was drowning. I’ve sorted and sifted through that self-knowledge, over and over and over again these past few years. And while I’ll never be fully done, I can see the whole more clearly now. 

I realized this past January that I only went home twice last year. Both times for someone who is not a member of my family--though of course, I spent time with them as well. I didn’t notice I was doing this at the time; I was too depressed to notice much of anything. And no one in my family was able to come to visit me, for various reasons. In short, there was a lot of time spent at a distance in the recent past. 

I have had so much time in the course of those seasons to be hurt and angry and grieving.

Tonight, saying goodbye, my mother started to cry. 

This is not unusual; endings are always particularly difficult for her, especially when it comes to her children. When I drove off to grad school, she stood in the center of the street until I had to turn, watching me drive away. The day my brother left for college, she rocked and cried in her rocking chair the full length of the day. 

I have always felt...so many things when this happens. Most commonly guilt and shame, for leaving her, hurting her this way. Frustration or annoyance that things must always be this hard. My own deep sadness, echoing hers and returning twice as strong. 

Tonight, I just...loved her. And held her, and tried to make her laugh. Assured her of my love, promised her that I would stay safe. Because this is where we are now. She will always love me, will always need me--perhaps a little too much, but perhaps just how a mother needs a daughter; I don’t have claim to say. And I will always, always love her, regardless of how complicated or messy or painful that love gets. 

And no matter how much I might wish to, I cannot and will not ever be able to take this sadness from her. Not without destroying too many other good things in the process. I am my own person now, separate from her, never to return the same. That piece of mourning will always be twined in with her joy. And just because it is sad doesn’t mean that it is terrible or wrong or bad.  

Love is not...cannot...just be happiness. Love is not one emotion because love isn’t an emotion at all; it’s an act. Daily, sometimes hourly; a chosen thing. 

I tried loving my mother for years without any anger and it became a shallow, confused mess. I’m trying to find fuller ways to love her now. And there will be days that that love takes all the growth I have in me to hold. 

Giving myself time for my anger, for my grief, grants me more strength for that holding. And if I grant myself that space, then by all rights I must grant her the same. We are not imperfect beings; we’re going to get it wrong and we’re going  to both get hurt. The ideals I bought into as a child don’t exist, regardless of who sold them to me.