"Being alone and feeling vulnerable. Like two separate themes, these two parts of myself unite in my being and sow the seeds of my longing for unconditional love."
--Mary Casey
Yesterday I was busy. I had mentally prepared myself all week to sit and relax back into the idea that my purpose on Saturday, for the most part, was to be chauffeur to my 13-year old daughter, whose social life extended from 10am to midnight, with four places to be physically and 342 places to be mentally. And because I was well-prepared for this, she only needed to visit maybe one place spiritually. That's my job. I'm a mom, and I am the only person on Earth responsible to love her unconditionally - for the REST OF HER LIFE.
That's right. Many people will love her - because she's a good person and she's smart and witty and kind and helpful and a helluva lot of fun - but no one can be held to the task of loving her unconditionally but her mother - and that's the way it is. If she were to miss the unconditional love of her mother, like many, many people out there did, she would never have the chance to make up for that again - although theoretically we hopefully learn to love ourselves that way and learn that some type of Higher Power loves us that way too - but our mothers are the most important people, ever, in our love lives. Moms are the hands-on manifestation of spiritual love.
When I worked as a retail bookstore manager and I would get called to the cashwrap because some unruly person would be complaining about some "thing" they believed they had been shorted: a discount for a creased page, an indifferent attitude from the cashier, etc.; and there would be times where I felt pushed beyond capacity. More than once I found myself actually saying to one of these "entitled" persons - "Hey, I'm sorry your mother didn't love you enough but we can't make up for that today. Do you want the book or not?" Most staff would find this outrageously funny, most customers would find this outrageously maddening and I would find it outrageously cathartic. Not the "right" thing to say, no, but certainly the truth as I see it.
I mean, why do you think all them prison dudes get tattoos that say "Mom" on them? Unconsciously they know, deep inside, that Mom is the only one that's ever going to love them no matter what nasty or unlawful acts they commit. And that's their birthright, as I see it.
When I brought Sasha into the world, I knew the minute my lips touched her forehead, right there in the delivery room, that my job was going to be at least a thousand-fold bigger than I had imagined it would be - and that I would have to rely on Something to help me find a path to follow because I didn't have anyone to mimic. My mother did love me unconditionally, as an adult, but when I was a child she was an active alcoholic and drug addict and what I remember her saying most often to me through grit teeth was, "Oh my god, you are just TOO MUCH!!!!" Hence my choices in husband and love relationships - "OMG, you are just too [fill in the blank]!" I've heard: Independent, Loud, Wordy, Funny, Blond, Flirty, Stubborn, Expecting Too Much, Expecting Too Little - the list is just stupid long.
It takes work to accept our loved ones for what they are, continuous work. We grow up to have ourselves and our tastes and we would most likely enjoy having a compliment to our person to be our partner in life. But we're never going to love them unconditionally, and they aren't going to be able to do that for us either. This is awfully hard to explain to someone who's never had a kid, because you're granted something at the birth of your child that you never had before and really didn't know existed, especially if you didn't get it from your own mom. But everyone was a kid and knows somewhere inside what their birthright was and that they deserved to be loved for exactly who they were, not for just what they did. It runs through our veins forever and ever. And if we don't get it then, we tend to look for it forever and ever again.
I'm fortunate enough to have found a Path to follow, a way to find what I need and sometimes even what I want, and most often it's through giving others what they want and what they need, if only for a few moments. Again, the smile to the sad guy bagging my groceries, my stopping for people looking at a map confused and offering my help, a hug to the barista this morning who had tears in her eyes. This giving helps me get. But I am still painfully aware, as are many of my "tribe" that I lack. And what I lack can never be made up for, it's not in the now. It's in the past.
Again, acceptance is the key to my spiritual well-being, and accepting that I wasn't loved in the way I needed to be when I was a kid will help me accept the love I do get today - as being enough. Yesterday, in between all my chauffeuring about, I took a walk to Greenlake, around it and back, and I knew I had to cry. I didn't know what about, but I knew it was there and that if I didn't find it I was going to eat yet another entire box of Girl Scout cookies and have to start searching for it all over again tomorrow. I allowed my mind to wander like my feet were doing, going through how unfair it was that Sasha's having such a good time and I'm not - no, that's not quite it - how my social life is nil this weekend - no, that's not going to do it - how I miss my mom so much - okay, that's a bit closer - and then, for whatever reason, I landed upon the beginning of my relationship with my ex-husband. And that did it.
Two lost kids we were, finding each other, hoping for the best. We had a great time, we did - I didn't marry some monster, I married a man I loved who loved me back. We lived our lives, we filled in each others' blanks and even though neither of us had ever been unconditionally loved, we were satisfied with what we did have. Wasn't perfect, but wasn't unworkable either. Good times. "What happened to us?" That's what finally brought the tears I was looking for - what the hell happened? Honestly - we had a child.
Now don't get me wrong, this is not Sasha's fault. She is probably one of the best things that's ever happened to me, physically, emotionally and most particularly spiritually. BUT, two people have to get on board with what feelings do come up when you have a kid who is entitled to get from you what you never got from your parents - unconditional love. It's imprinted, the love, the jealousy, the dysfunction - what the German philosopher Alice Miller, in her book Prisoners of Childhood, calls "the compulsion to repeat" what was done to us. And if you want to stay on your Path, you're going to have to look hard and long at what you didn't get, so you can give what you're about to give. Whoa, what a tall order!
Although many other things happened to cause the demise of my marriage, this is where it started. Having a child. And now I'm alone. Or yesterday, that's certainly how it felt - BIG TIME. I am alone, making all the decisions, weathering all the storms, taking all the responsibilities, having to find the resources, etc. I am alone and I am vulnerable and I don't feel loved.
I finally get back to my own street and by now I'm weeping up a storm and trying to stop because I've got to get back to real life and find my chauffeurs hat and act like a mom. Shit! I wanted to cry and now I can't stop. What the heck do I do now?
As I cross the street, there's my neighbor, pulling weeds and landscaping her absolutely beautiful yard. And she stands up and she sees me and she asks me if I'm okay and I can't answer without sounding like a six year old so she walks up to me and just puts her arms around me and hugs me tight. Okay, is that that Higher Power we speak of or what?
And I tell her what I'm thinking and what's come up for me and she tells me the most interesting thing: that she feels the same way. Not at that very moment, but often. "I am alone, making all the decisions, weathering all the storms, taking all the responsibilities, having to find the resources, etc. I am alone and I am vulnerable and I don't feel loved." And she's married. And she has a child. And she was raised by an alcoholic mother.
So there you have it. My evening turned around a bit, just like I needed it to, with that hug and with that connection with another of my "tribe" and I finished up my chauffeuring and watched "Inglorious Basterds" with my popcorn (much less fat than them freaking Girl Scout cookies) and I lived and loved my way through another day here on Earth.
The Path! I am grateful, although somewhat exhausted.
Posts
