Mommy Issues

The love I have for my mother is stronger than I really know on a conscious level. It’s so strange to find myself sitting here awakening to the deeply buried needs of my Inner Child for her mother. I feel so foolish because I didn’t know this thing was active inside me!

I didn’t realize that when I was a little kid, I grieved every time my mother would leave. I didn’t know this was happening because every time I would show my despair, I was forced to shut them down.  If I expressed my feelings of woe, I was criticized, belittled and even threatened with bodily harm if I shed a tear, and so I learned to suck it up.

Look, I was a latch-key kid like many other children. But I was an only child, as well. Most of my childhood was spent alone as a protective measure. I couldn’t have friends in the house because no adults were present to supervise us and of course, two young and naive heads are not better than one when it comes to keeping out of trouble. Of course, I wanted to have friends to play with sometimes, but honestly, I was okay playing by myself. I liked reading and listening to music and singing out loud and dancing by myself. It was fun and satisfying. Folks would ask me if I missed having brothers and sisters. My answer was always, “No,” because I didn’t know what it was like to have them. I found friends in the Spirit world and created a safe and fun world with my stuffed animals and dolls.

But there was a distinct loneliness surrounding my mother.  I longed for my mother when she was gone from work.  I wanted her home. I wanted to be near her all the time because she was mine. I was crazy in love with my mother and I worshipped the ground on which she walked. She was beautiful and she knew EVERYTHING.  I should have had a clue about my deep love for my mom because as many women would travel to a place like Paris and imagine strolling the romantic streets with their boyfriends, I traveled the world and imagined that my mom was by my side.  To this day I have these same conversations, even though I know she is dead.  Gosh, looking back at this, I’m just blown away by my subconscious processes. How dopey am I to not realize the content of my own thoughts.

With all my obsession with my mother (and I am realizing that it was a small obsessions… harmless?  I don’t know, but it definitely did some damage to my own psyche and esteem.) and placing her on a pedestal, I wonder about my attraction to punishment. My mom was terribly unkind to me. There is no way to deny it. Her unkindness fucked with my mind and it clouded the flow of the love I had. I got tired of getting beaten up and being humiliated and being told how stupid I am. But the thing I am realizing is that my anger and resentment toward my mother for her bad behavior is actually a coping mechanism that helped protect me against the pain I felt because having hatred coming from something you adored was fucking unfathomable. It became soooo much easier to hate my mother than to be constantly rejected by her.

UNFATHOMABLE. So damned painful.

I am coming back to this now as an adult because Spirit is guiding me very clearly here. In this ‘2’ year, the year of the Moon, the year of doing all the deep Shadow Work for profound healing, it’s saying, “Look at your concept of loneliness. It’s not what you think.” I had always thought that my deep feelings of loneliness was about missing other youth to play with. I didn’t have a lot of friends because as a nomadic latch-key kid, I couldn’t make connections. And don’t get me wrong, I did miss having children around me, but for the most part, I REALLY enjoy my solitude. I like having my world my way and I also enjoy not sharing. Hahahaha! It’s funny but true!

The problem, though, is that my only real source of connection in the world was my mother who was constantly going to work. I couldn’t stand it for her to be gone but when she got home, she pushed me away. So I was in this cycle of hungering for my mom’s love and then being rejected and told that I wasn’t good enough. Fuck. How’s a kid supposed to feel right in the world???

I’ll tell you something. Food is the perfect replacement for a missing parent. Food was consistently delicious and for me, it was always there. Oooooh! I have a cast iron stomach so food NEVER rejected me… nor I it.

Today, I am awakening to the pure love that actually manages to exist for my mother in spite of the wounding and trauma that I experienced as a child. This is a very good thing. It’s one of the key pieces that was missing from my sense of wholeness. I was lopsided with the Shadow and awakening to this love for my mother is helping me balance the Shadow with Light. I am so glad to have found this part of myself. It was so deeply hidden beneath the layers of anger and resentment and unrealized dreams that I couldn’t hear its voice crying to be heard. “I want my mama!” That what this child has been screaming for decades and to cope with it, I layered on distractions and activities and work and drama.

As I sat there in tears feeling the deep love and its grief for my mother, I drew a Tarot card in response. Can you guess which card it was? The Moon, which represent Mother, Shadow, and confronting your inner demons. The message is very clear. I have mommy issues. Hahahahaha! Not just that. But actually, yes… that. But more like– I have beautiful soul-utions.