Some things are easier to be candid about than others, yet it’s the things that I am more apt to hide that I want my friends to know about. Some things seem to be connected to so much pain that it seems almost trite to just let them roll off my tongue, if you know what I mean.
Talking about my mother is one of those things. There is so much pain and sadness connected to me and my mother. The pain is so deep that part of myself won’t let me feel it, I can actually feel myself growing numb sometimes when memories play like movies in my head. The tears and the pain start to come, but they are often swiftly pushed aside from the numbing that tries to protect me.
I don’t need to be protected like that anymore, but as a wise person once said; “old habits die hard.” There is hope in that phrase, being that they do eventually die, but a lot of work/ reversal of old beliefs and patterns must take place to enable the killing off of old habits.
My life has been a killing field of sorts. I am slowly winning the battle to be free of an unhappy and hurtful past. It’s not a new story by any means. Very few of us are strangers to pain, yet we all succumb to the lie that we are alone in our pain; it’s just not true.
As I contemplate our local move later in June, I am happy knowing that I get to stay here, in the Cincinnati area, where God has allowed us to finally grow deeper roots. I am finally feeling connected to good people. I desperately want my friends to be my family, to replace the brother and sister I have lost, I long for the closeness, the deep words that are like salve to my soul. I want to know and be known. It takes time. It takes time to grow a beautiful garden.
My mother was such a great gardener, but though she was successful with plants, she failed with her children. That hurts more than you’ll ever know.
It’s time for me to feel to grieve the loss of a mother I never really had.