Dear…

Happy New Year!

As I’ve gotten older, I have truly embraced crying it out. I used to believe crying was a sign of weakness, but baby, give me some puffs with lotion because I will need it when I get done.

Today’s blog has taken me on an adventure of emotions and to say that I wasn’t sure I was ready to address them would be an understatement. But here we are because this isn’t just about me and my yes is my yes…

I am a 27-year-old mother of 4… and my mother has never been present for any of my pregnancies, postpartum recoveries and or miscarriages…

Until now, I didn’t acknowledge this bothered me, but as the realization that the comfort of my mother will never be something I experience settles in, I am…feeling. I think about the relationship I have with my girls and the relationship I will have with them as they get older and wonder if my mother ever thought about my sisters and me in these capacities.

I have accepted what is or isn’t between my mother and me, and before today, you wouldn’t have been able to tell me I wasn’t okay with this, but as one year ends and another begins, my relationship with my daughters has brought about so many emotions that I honestly didn’t expect so here we’ll unpack them together, and in the end prayerfully you’ll be able to heal as well if necessary as necessary.

In no capacity do I desire to attempt a relationship or even a conversation with my mother. This is just me normalizing being aware of your emotions, expressing them so internally they aren’t weaponized, and also making it a point to call a thing what it is and not feeling shame about it. But most importantly, exposing that the Lord cannot heal what you do not acknowledge.

I love my mother, in spite and despite I love my mother. However, I don’t love my mother more than I love myself. Becoming a mother, especially to my girls has been my most insightful experience, my girls have been my biggest reasons for attempting to understand my mother. Outside of motherhood, I believed I made genuine attempts to understand my mother, and to no avail, we never seemed to be able to reach a common point. Common ground, common respect, common anything, and because of this I made the decision that no contact was best. I will say that having my youngest daughter has brought a new level of understanding into motherhood’s complexity.

I 100% stand by my decision to go no contact with my mother, and although moments exist where I’d love to just be comforted, hugged, and told that everything would be all right because she’s there, that, unfortunately, isn’t an experience I’ll ever live and this is what provoked my desire to heal or at least begin the healing and releasing the negativity I housed regarding my mother.

I’ve been having ugly cries to the Lord. I’ve come to appreciate these times when my tears utter the things my mouth can’t seem to form. After a few of these encounters, I realized I was harboring some things against my mother that were impeding my ability to forgive her. What made this even more uncomfortable was the fact that I believed that I had forgiven her, but yet here I was, being put face to face with so many emotions and realizing my heart was closed off to the very woman who brought me into this world. I realized the woman was trying to forgive, but the little girl was very much so still suffering. So I shifted my prayer perspective.

I started asking the Lord to bring back to my remembrance the things I suppressed concerning my mother to protect myself, and as he has been doing so, whatever emotions are provoked from those memories, I release them to the Lord… Memories suppressed hold weight in how we respond to people and things and, when not addressed they become the catalyst of how we not only handle people but more importantly how we handle ourselves. Although suppressed memories are a form of protection, your brain naturally adapts, in my case, those very memories became weapons not just used against my mother but also against myself.

I’ve come to accept that healing and forgiveness have to be done daily. Every time you remember, you have to forgive, and although some moments may be harder to accept and heal than others, as memories and moments arise, I find myself at times getting angry but forgiving even through my anger.

I blamed my mother for a lot of what went wrong regarding our relationship, and in this season, I’ve had to hold myself accountable and govern myself accordingly for the role I’ve played in the breakdown of our relationship. I have had to normalize not weighing the blame of who was “more wrong” in certain situations and accept that wrong is wrong, and even if I felt like I played no part, I was at minimal an accessory to the failure of our relationship which still required acknowledgment.

Throughout all of this, I am learning how to hold myself accountable while acknowledging my emotions regarding my mother. Working through my emotions and being intentional about understanding them because I do not want to inadvertently mother any of my children but especially my daughters through an unhealed lens. Acknowledging that I love my mother and in some areas am still healing and in others have been hurt by my mother, and I’ve become intentional about seeking the Lord regarding my mother.

Praying vulnerably, honestly, and intentionally has helped me get here. This is a daily work in progress and though some days are uglier than others, I’m embracing this process because I deserve peace when I think of my mother.

If you have not had the best relationship with your parents I encourage you to look inwardly before declaring them to be the problem. You might be surprised to discover that you are becoming like who hurt you unintentionally!

I love you!