 "You come to love not by finding the perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly." --Sam Keen
Many relationships have been damaged or destroyed by unrealistic or unrealized expectations. My relationship with my mother was nearly a casualty of this affliction. In my little six-year-old mind, moms were supposed to:
My teenage self thought moms were supposed to:
I was angry at my mom for many years because she did not live up to my expectations. She was none of the things I felt I needed her to be and even though my anger came from all the ways in which I thought she was lacking, the truth is, mostly it was rooted in fear. I was afraid that something was wrong with me that made me unlovable and unwanted. My pain manifested itself by me lashing out and that didn't abate until I was grown and began to understand her insecurities, her own feelings of abandonment, and her lack of maternal instincts. I learned to love her, accept her for who she was and I am eternally grateful that she and I found a tenuous peace well before she died. We often disagreed on numerous things, but in one thing we were in perfect accord. Not long before she died, she said, "I am with you, baby, no matter how far apart we are and I always will be." And so she is. *image from deshow.net
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About The Author
I grew up in rural North Carolina. When I was only nineteen, I moved away and became a military wife. My only aspiration at that tender time in my life was to create an adult life that "fixed" all of the "injustices" of my childhood. Secretly, however, I wanted to reach for the sky! I wanted to be a writer and find ways to "save the world" (my mother used to say, "You have Save the World Syndrome".). Mostly, I wanted to matter. Archives
August 2021
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