Writing about what happens when family relationships are pulled apart by loyalty, influence, distance, silence, and competing narratives. The grief of loving people who are still alive, the confusion of being shut out, and the reality of trying to live inside a relationship you no longer get to participate in.
The deep seated angst of hoping and begging for peace and resolution- was relieved on the day which I received notice, by a lady whom I barely know, of my mother's departure from his world. Today is her birthday. I located details for her service, from the online obituary link, emailed to me by my gloating ex husband-- AND I showed up- because my recovery teaches me to do a right thing, no matter how I feel. My mother's family…
Because I was raised without healthy sustained connection with my care givers, I attempted to build an identity around attachments and affiliations- which would not ever satisfy my need for safe and nurturing connection. I had no idea how to identify or participate in safe connection. My program of recovery is where I first was introduced to healthy and appropriate ways for relating and connecting: to discern a standard for wholesome, benevolent, and acceptable conduct within non-essential relationships. By doing the work…
You've got to be taught, to hate and fearYou've got to be taught from year to yearIt's got to be drummed in your dear little earYou've got to be carefully taught You've got to be taught, to be afraidOf people whose eyes are oddly madeAnd people whose skin is a different shadeYou've got to be carefully taught You've got to be taught before it's too lateBefore you are six or seven or eightTo hate all the people your relatives hateYou've…
My life is filled with terrible choices, ugly truths, and failed relationships. Those things do not define me and cannot be used to shame or diminish me. Only through my courage to walk directly into my own story; my willingness to acknowledge the breakage and to do the work of repair, have I been made healthy and strong, fully able to live my own life. Nothing, absolutely nothing, makes me feel more proud than my choice to recover and how far I have…
