My husband and I love cafes. We are certifiably addicted to mochas. Every weekend we leave our two children with their grandmother, who bless her dear heart, keeps them gleefully for us overnight. This means we get to date again! We especially look forward to our java runs in the morning after a lovely night of ... well, you know. Our favorite place lately has an atmospheric vibe that I love. There are paintings on the walls featuring Eric Clapton, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, and Duke Ellington. We sit and sip, we muse and talk, we bond and eat. These are the moments that conspire to infuse me with enormous bliss. I feel indelible gratitude for my life, for our life together. I often find myself asking rhetorically and knowingly, “How Did I Get Here?” Born into fear, chaos, pain, and emotional annihilation, the proverbial phoenix has risen.
For one thing, I wanted to face the truth from a young age. I had an inborn razor sharp drive to see reality. I cannot attribute this to anything other than my innate nature. I just did. I fought tooth and nail to get into therapy at fourteen. I threatened, coerced, I begged, I yearned. I believe that this is not always the case, some folks turn toward repression, denial, and thus the proverbial head-in-the-sand result.
I don’t know why some mothers lack that, besides of course their own pain, unresolved and unprocessed, of which they are so unconscious. That may qualify as an answer to our “WTF’s!” what was she thinking? How could she? And in my case, the same can be said of my father, though he did not physically abandon me until later. It is hard, parenting. Selflessness, shaping life around another’s want and need is not always a breezy walk on the beach. Especially when we have unhealed wounds, of which I had many. My parents lacked the capacity for reflection that is essential to facing unhealed trauma. When actively healing, it is hard too. I had some very hard days as a young mama. But never did I walk out on my children. I was speaking with another fellow advocate recently, who said to me, “You do not give up, parents who abandon their kids take the easy way out.” My therapist explained to me that abandonment of a child is “total annihilation.” Perfect description.
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