On the flip side of the coin is my Mother. My Mother, sadly, has spent her entire life blaming everyone else for what she feels she has missed in life. Sadly, I am one of those held responsible. It was pretty tough growing up in a home always believing you were nothing, meaningless, a spec in the dust. That relationship has been more like a car hanging on the ledge of a cliff just waiting for a butterfly to land on the front end and send it tumbling over to its demise. I have fought to keep it alive and at times there are glimmers of hope but that is vastly swallowed by her bitterness when my Grandmother does something that remind my Mother of me. My Mother would always get angry with me and say, "you're just like your Grandmother!" as if I were a homicidal maniac. My Grandmother was an amazing woman and helped my Mother raise me while my Mother was trying to get her life together. Now, my Grandmother is in a nursing home with dementia and is clueless about her surroundings but my Mother is convinced her incoherent ramblings are aimed at my Mother.
In any case, I got the hell out of Dodge 6 years ago when my son fell ill with a chronic illness. We lost everything in the process, home, etc., but my son ended up with a diagnoses and we ended up with peace from the family drama. My Son and I spent the majority of the past six years moving from state to state and hospital to hospital trying to find the best medical help to cure him. During this time it took everything I had to keep working and focusing on jobs as well as medical treatments for my son. Neither he nor I really had time to heal from our past wounds and abandonment issues. My apologies, I failed to mention my former husband, my son's biological father, abandoned us when my son was an infant. So, that's two Father's gone from the picture.
You know, I made a decision several years ago to remain single until my son was raised. And now that he is 18 and doing much better physically, I wonder who I am. I've lost myself. Abandonment and bitterness from my Mother. Abandonment and judgment from my Father. Years spent devoted to raising my son and finding him the best treatment for his illness (worth every single minute) kept me from ever placing myself first. So, I have totally neglected myself spiritually, mentally, emotionally and physically. I did not have the ability to lean upon the wisdom and love of my parents. It was quite difficult. And now, 18 years after my divorce, I wonder about my capabilities to even be in a relationship.
In John's song, he says, "Oh you see that skin? It's the same she's been standing in since the day she saw him walking away. Now she's left cleaning up the mess he made." It's sad to think about the fact that perhaps I have spent my lifetime picking up the pieces my parents left which may have resulted in relational choices I have made in the past. However, now believing that "everything that happens to me is the best possible thing that can happen to me" (Chris Prentiss) it is easy to say that this is a new beginning for me. The thought of meeting someone wonderful and them watching me cleaning up someone else's mess is terrifying. Healing from a wounded past isn't easy. Humor has been very helpful in our home. My son is a comedian, musician and writer. I have a humorous business blog I write for a local company. Humor has been a lifesaver for us. Yet, when it's time for me to sit back and write a personal blog, I find it so difficult to be humorous. This just has the feel of a diary than comedy approach to coping.
In closing, please know if you are a man, it is your responsibility to be good to women. And women, be good to men and each other. We have to learn to love and forgive each other or we will always be left to clean up other's messes. We have to take the time to get to know ourselves and who we are inside and out. Take care of yourself first and foremost or you won't be able to take care of someone else without losing YOU. So, "Father's be good to your daughters and daughter's will love like you do. Girls become lover's who turn into Mother's. So Mother's be good to your daughter's, too." Thanks John, for reminding us.
