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So it’s Monday after the holiday and I’m writing today to share a bit of the why behind why I opted to spend it on my own.
And while a few of you may accuse me of being selfish or inconsiderate, a few more of you may nod with me and maybe even wish you’d given yourselves similar permission.
And it’s for that possibility I want to offer this:
This Christmas, I gave myself permission to spend the holiday on my own.
Translation: I consciously chose not to spend it with my mother.
Breathe. Pause.
As I type, I’m sitting at my computer, in my sweats, in the aftermath of the holiday.
No tree, no presents, no décor. (That’s her thing).
No hurried rush rush last minute book a flight obligatory madness craze out of “must go see mom because you know, it’s the right thing to do.” (that’s my ‘old’ thing).
Breathe.
Why did I choose this?
Well of course I’m a selfish, relentless, ungrateful daughter who wants to ruin her mother’s holiday.
No, of course not. Though I’ve been accused of such, it is not that.
I chose to celebrate the holiday in my cozy nook with my candles aglow and my thoughts unencumbered, open to possibility because…
On December 14, 2009, just a few days ago, I turned 41.
And I decided it’s time to let go the decades of guilt and frustration that I’m not the daughter “she” wants me to be.
Pause. Breathe.
It’s time to stop punishing myself.
It’s time to stop feeling saddened or sorry that the who I am appears inadequate to her.
And it’s beyond time I give myself permission to think I’d be able to dodge the comments, ignore the sneers, or exist under the regime of the way things are when you return home playing a role that you can’t ever play honestly, yet trying to save face because that’s the ‘what I’m supposed to do.”
Beyond done with thinking that choices I’ve made out of obligation--or not wanting to hurt her-- serve me.
They haven’t. They don’t. I need a new way.
Pause…Breathe.
But here’s the truth:
I love my mother, truly. Yet, I don’t know what I need or want from our relationship anymore. And so I’m taking a huge major pause to just breathe.
There’s a few things I know for sure:
In my attempts to show up and make sure her holiday or her whatever goes as she wants it to, I put myself on autopilot just to ‘deal’ or ‘cope.’ And that’s never healthy for me. In fact, it’s like self imposed suffocation.
I know we can only impact how we choose to respond to someone’s actions, as we can’t make them change.
But I’ve not nurtured myself enough. And autopilot mode just to save face does not lead toward healing. Ever.
That’s where I am this holiday season.
I know I’m at a place where, while I hope for healing, there’s still a lot of memory that hasn’t been forgotten.
It is difficult to forget constant criticism, the constant “Why aren't you married by now? Or , “why haven’t you provided me with my next career as your children’s grandmother?”
That indirect blame and guilt and shunning is really her own voicing her emptiness, her fear of the unknown. She was brought up thinking by now she'd be a grandmother to her daughter's children.
And none of my choices would heal that. And I know this.
But hearing her constant wishing my life were different is still painful for me…not because I can’t take criticism. And this is the kicker: It’s painful for me because I ache to know my mother is hurting in any way and I want to heal that.
Yet, I know that I must let go my desire to personally hold responsibility to fill up my mother’s heart and give her a way to self fulfillment.
I know that no matter what I choose, my choices are not the means through which she’ll find completeness.
I know that – now – the best I can do is walk the walk that I must for me…and hope in some small measure that to the degree I make a practice out of nurturing my heart and what I need that in some small way, she maybe will see the who I am.
But this practice of nurturing me is finally not about mom.
This year it’s about me.
And bear with me,
