Estranged Mother's Day (AND BEAN PHOTOS) (Patreon)

The older I get and the more years I've had without contact, the more I appreciate how hard my mom was trying to be a good mother, to keep her family together, to share love with us, with me.

I went no-contact in 2010 and my life got substantially better but my heart still hurts.

She wasn’t a bad person, though she did bad things.

She was mentally ill and traumatized and had zero resources to deal with it, let alone even name those things in the first place. She was absolutely doing her best while living in an upside down hell world that made no sense. When she behaved erratically, frighteningly, and combatively, it's because she perceived the world as erratic and frightening and threatening her own sense of safety and security. 

She deserved so much better and she could have been so much better if she'd just had access to trained, professional care. The care that understands your hurt, the care that teaches you coping skills, the care that prescribes you medication for your brain's chemical imbalances. She did the best she could with the tools she had. But when all you have is a hammer... 

My heart hurts for her. My heart hurts for hurting her, and my heart hurts because I carry her same demons inside me. 

I can’t help her, but I can tend to our shared inner monsters and make for me the stable life she deserved to have. A life with friends and chosen family. A life with tools for navigating the hard shit. A life with stability. 

I'm sorry I abandoned her. I'm sorry I hurt her. I'm sorry, in that I feel sorrow, but I do not feel regret. I tell myself that I’m honoring and loving my mother every time I take my meds and practice the mental health care I’ve learned as an adult.

I wish she had had the resources and community and support to get the help she needed. The help to heal, to thrive, to have the family connection she so desperately wanted. 

I hope she finds all of that, I hope she finds community and love. 

I hope she finds peace and I hope I've learned enough from her to veer away from the path our shared demons predetermined for us. I hope I'm building a different road. I hope we meet again in heaven, but I don't believe in heaven, so I hope somehow some piece of each of us winds up in the same garden bed and we grow something beautiful and green and healthy together and that's how our story will actually end. 

I hope.  

(Green Beans straight from Danielle Corsetto's yard)