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.
Omg. I woke up thinking about exactly this. How holding a clear and healthy boundary, within my family of origin(and marriage) gets labelled “holding a grudge”. Hellooo ??? It’s not at all, magnanimous to be willing to move on from abuse by your own mouth or hand without willingness to acknowledge and amend. I can honestly say that in my entire family and marriage experience, not one conflict was ever openly engaged in a way that was mutually aimed at…
To state that my feelings about and reasons for attending yesterday's service for my mother are messy and confusing, is an understatement. At this moment, this is what I am able to discern. I did not want my children paraded by and fawned over by people (who wish to claim them as family while shunning their mother) . The manners in which I was notified of both the death and the service, speak volumes to the collective statement of my "place". I…
Dear Mother, You must be pleased that I married someone emotionally and morally similar to you and to my sister? And equally contented that YOUR family shows unyielding loyalty to your will and way in the form of continued stonewalling. Rest in peace. Someone should. What was my crime again...Oh, I learned to say No to bullshit without screaming and swearing and I refused to actively engage in a war that you all insisted on and have the nerve…
Trying to surrender my current prayer of “Make it fucken stop” for “PLEASE ?? Help me become willing to accept the things I cannot change and to just love the hell out of my sons and my people”. Digging deep to accept the things I dislike and over which I have no power. Recovery teaches me that if it is a problem, there will be a solution. If there is no solution, it is not a problem, but an unpleasant fact—to be…
