Dear mom,
I’ve found myself thinking about you a lot these days.
Perhaps it’s the not fully understanding.
You see, I miss the essence of mother.
I find myself trying to reconstruct, reroot, start from scratch essentially, rebuilding these bones of existence that is mother.
I miss having a sense of security and acceptance.
It’s been a long time since my nervous system knew that or maybe never?
I’m not sure.
I only know that my bones ache for that.
Like somewhere deeper there is an echo of the essence they once knew in some mysterious way.
It’s taken me most of my adult life to accept that you are not who I want you to be.
Security and acceptance I’ve struggled to find, well outside of the bounds of our relationship.
Our relationship was never built on the kind of trust I would have liked.
For a long time I resented you – hated you really – for that.
In reality I was just grieving something I yearned for, but would never experience with you.
Deep trust.
I didn’t tell you things because I needed to protect myself from you.
Sometimes I didn’t tell you things because I needed to protect you.
Just as you didn’t trust me, I didn’t trust you.
I didn’t trust that you would still love and accept me once you knew I wasn’t perfect.
We demonstrate our values and our honesty in relationship not through our words, but our actions.
I guess you never realized that your withdrawal to protect yourself would have its breaking point.
At one point, ironically enough exiting an emotionally abusive relationship with a man, something in my bones shifted.
I knew from that moment on all of my relationships would change.
I no longer had any tolerance in my cells for relationships that weren’t healthy for me.
Trust, boundaries, and honestly accepting who I am (and who others are) became the litmus that all relationing passed through.
My relationship with you did not pass the litmus.
I still to this day feel devastated.
There is still a lot of grief.
But also acceptance.
I don’t hate you anymore.
I can finally free you from the person I wanted you to be.
I can finally let you be who you are.
The only thing is, I’m not sure if and how I can be in relationship with that person.
The fabric of society tells me I must, but if it were any other relationship other than mother-daughter, they would tell me otherwise.
I ask myself so often how can I be in relationship with you in a way that doesn’t hurt me?
Just writing that sentence is pretty painful.
But it’s true.
I have to be honest with myself.
The part of me that aches to reach out is the small child, looking for comfort, safety, and acceptance in her mothers arms.
I know you are not her.
But I still ache for her.
The fantasy of her.
The idea of her.
Your daughter,
Manya