I’m finding it odd how much more comfortable I am speaking about this journey every day. I never would have thought that I would ever be a girl willing to say “God taught me this…” but here I am, proclaiming that He has been pointing me down a path that I don’t know how I ever missed. I feel his presence, and I know that there are things in the works for me right now. It’s a very odd feeling, especially since I care less and less about admitting it. There was a time in my life (fairly recently) when I would have been embarrassed to make those kinds of proclamations, but they are just starting to come naturally to me now.
This week’s bible study lessons focused a lot on looking into the past. The central message was about recognizing patterns in family history, and figuring out how to break those chains. You see this all the time in families that are plagued by alcohol or abuse; kids tend to grow up and mirror what they saw, regardless of whether or not they really want to.
In my life I can say that I recognized certain chains long ago, but that I tried so hard to break them in all the wrong ways that I wound up just as bound, but in the opposite direction. One of the things I saw growing up (or at least, the way I perceived it) was both of my parents doing anything for love. I saw two people who were terribly afraid to be alone, and who were willing to sacrifice and look past a lot in order to avoid that fate they deemed so awful. They were two very opposite ends of the same spectrum, but in my mind the things I saw and the things that hurt me all stemmed from one thing: love. The need for love.
I grew up thinking from a very young age “Not me. Not ever. I will never stand by and allow someone to lie to me, to manipulate me, or to hurt the people I care about. I will never put up with that. I would rather be alone.” And those thoughts have stuck. For years I had a hard time even maintaining friendships. I would test people; push them a little bit to see if they came back, and then push them a little more until they stopped trying. I was convinced that everyone I ever loved would eventually betray and abandon me (I actually have entire journals full of that sentiment), and so I pushed until people gave up and then I would sit back and think “See. That’s exactly what I knew they would do in the end; hurt me. Leave me. I’m glad I didn’t let myself care too much.”
As I’ve gotten older, I’ve learned to trust my friendships more (thanks to some truly amazing women who I have been blessed to have in my life), but I’ve still been burned a few times and had to stop myself from thinking “I attract this. This is my fault and it will never change and I need to stop trying.” In those moments I've had to remind myself that sometimes there are people in this world with the worst of intentions, but that everyone doesn't fit that same mold. Not everyone will leave me, not everyone will lie to me, and not everyone will hurt me.
While I’ve gotten better with friendships, I still struggle with real relationships… with love. I am terrified of that idea; terrified of someone having enough power or control over me that I would let them get away with behaviors that I would otherwise have found abhorrible. When it comes to dating, I tend to look for flaws right away. Even when I like a guy, I find myself picking him apart and looking for ways in which he could hurt me right out the gate. I get myself so worked up that I decide it’s not worth it and bail. This is a cycle that has bit me time and time again, and even when I know I’m doing it I almost can’t calm myself down enough to stop. In the moment I panic, and it's not until it's all over that I'm really able to comprehend that I've done it again.
Abandonment is a big theme in my life, and I am quick to see it in even the most minor of betrayals. I wait for it, and then I pounce on it and say “See! People leave me!” I know I do this, and I know it’s not healthy, but… it’s a cycle. I recognize it as such, and I know where it stems from (from an incessant need to not make the same mistakes I thought my parents made), so now I just have to figure out how to stop it.
Easier said than done, right?
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I have my mother’s hands. 
I have always hated my hands. I refuse to wear rings because I don't want to draw attention to them, and I've long joked that if I ever do get married I will wear my bands on a necklace. There has never been a point when I haven't disliked my hands, but for the longest time I couldn’t even pinpoint why. I mean, I’m certainly never going to become a hand model, but they aren’t that bad. Sure, I can’t keep my nails long for the life of me (this is the part where my perfectionist side rears her ugly head: if I break ONE nail, I have to bite them all down, because it just freaks me out to have only 9 nice nails. It makes the other one stand out so much more, and I don’t like it. I would rather they all be gnawed down than to have one stubby one stand out!) and I tend to have scratches or burns on my hands more often than not, but really? What was so bad about them?
A few years ago, it hit me. They were my mother’s hands. They were the one thing on my entire physical body that I think comes 100% from her. Sure, I’ve blamed her for my big butt and a few other not-so-great traits (not her skin though. I have seen pictures of her in college, and the woman had the most incredible skin. I often find myself thinking “Why couldn’t I have inherited that!”), but this is the one area that is very clearly from her. And that is why I have never liked my hands. I don’t like this constant reminder that I am part of her; that I came from her.
And this is where I must pause for some of you readers who have heard me both defend and admonish my mother. It’s an odd dynamic, I'll admit, and I can’t really explain to you where it stems from. I’d like to say it’s like that younger sibling who you have no problem picking on, but who you would draw blood to protect from someone else, but truthfully? There just isn’t that much love or protectiveness there. I don’t know why I’ve always felt the need to defend my mother’s sexuality but nothing else. It may be because I have seen people in my life (ignorant, hateful people) use her sexuality to explain away all her other failings, and I find that infuriating because no, her being a lesbian is not what made her a bad mother. If anything, her trying to hide that part of herself for her entire life is what made her incapable of worrying about or caring for anyone else when she finally came out. I often blame a society that made her feel as though she had to change and be someone else for why I don’t have a mother, so maybe that’s why I feel the need to defend that side of her: so that no other person wastes their life away trying to be someone other than who they are.
I was an observer to a conversation once (not involved, just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time) where an acquaintance of mine was arguing about why gay people shouldn’t be allowed to adopt. At one point she turned to me, wanting agreement, and said “I mean, look at your mom, right?” And I was furious. Just because my mom gave up, didn’t mean all gay people were the same way. I tried to explain all the ways in which she was wrong, and all the reasons why any person who wants to take a child into their home and love them and nurture them and give them stability should have the right to do so, but she wouldn’t hear it. My mom was gay, and that’s what was wrong with her, and further; in her mind my mother being a lesbian was also the sole point of blame for all of my problems as well.
It was all I could do not to slap that girl.
So yes, I often defend my mother’s sexuality even though I rarely have compassion for her in any other arena. She was the first person to abandon me; the first one to decide that sticking around wasn’t worth the trouble. There is still anger there. There is still hurt. I will never understand how a woman could walk away from her child (regardless of the circumstances) and for that reason I will never understand my mother. For that reason I have spent my entire life trying to be more than my mother; trying to be better.
I don’t know if that comes off right, but it’s the truth. I have spent my entire life trying to shed anything about myself that could have stemmed from her; attempting to be a person who is not even recognizable in her shadow. And this is why I hate my hands; because no matter what I do, they will always be her hands.
As I was going through the lesson this week there was a section where I was supposed to list the good and bad things I got from each of my family members (parents and grandparents). She was the only one I couldn’t think of anything positive to attest to. There are several reasons for this, and I think part of it is because I was young when everything changed. As a result, I have very few “before” memories of my mother (before she came out and embraced that other lifestyle at the expense of everything else). My dad is always saying that I have a skewed vision of the past, and that I tend to remember only the negative. I try to remember the positive, I really do, but those good memories seem so distant.
Then I was reading my study and I saw this line in regards to dealing with our family baggage:
Have the “Courage to ‘extract the precious from the worthless.’”
I thought to myself “OK God. I’ll try. I can’t make any guarantees, but I’ll try.”
I could only come up with a handful of good memories, but here they are:
• My mother used to sing to me every night before bed. She had an acoustic guitar like mine, only she could actually play hers (at least, a lot better than I can play mine). She used to sing Bill Withers' “Lean on Me”, and to this day whenever I hear that song I think of her. It's one of the only times I ever think of her without bitterness. I still love this song.
• When I was in 4th grade, one of my friends died. She had a bad heart, and she actually had a heart attack in front of the entire class, but the school sent us all home believing that she had just fainted. When my mother told me she had died that night, I cried. I cried for hours, and my mother held me and didn’t say a thing. She was just there, as I sobbed uncontrollably over something I didn’t understand.
• Before my parents got divorced, she used to make dinner almost every night. Good meals; real meals with all the appropriate sides. I don’t remember much about those moments, but I do remember always thinking that I would do that too when I had kids. My mother instilled in me a love for cooking.
And that’s it. That’s really all I can come up with, but it’s something, right? It’s a start?
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My church is opening up a shelter for single mothers and their children. On Sunday the new staff had a chance to introduce themselves and speak. When it was the resident manager's turn, I was immediately taken aback and in awe of her. Her story was horrific. The things she has seen and been through are things I cannot even imagine. I honestly felt bad for allowing myself to be as injured by my past as I am, because as I sat there listening to her speak I thought “there is no comparison”. My childhood was a cakewalk compared to what she had been through. And yet, there she was; optimistic and happy and in love with the Lord.
She said one thing that was truly a wake-up call to me, this week especially. Prior to describing the rape, and torture, and abuse she endured, she said “I am going to tell you my story, but I don’t want anyone to judge or think ill of my parents. My parents did the best they could with the situations they were handed. Life wasn’t always easy for them either, and they did the best they could.”
I was completely stunned. How can a woman have such a traumatic story, and be able to tell it with such poise and grace? How can she be so forgiving?
I decided right then and there that if she can do it, so can I. I don’t know how, and I don’t know what’s expected of me in this, but I do know that I need to stop hating my mother’s hands.
Because at the end of the day, she really did do the best she could. It wasn’t enough, and I hate that fact more than anything, but it was the best she could do at that point in her life.
And thus, I’ve been thinking about the door I shut in her face a few months back. I don’t know that that’s how it should be left; with her thinking I have this cold space in my heart for her. For the first time in a long time I feel that spot thawing out, and I find myself looking at her with compassion instead of anger. I don’t know what that means. I still don’t think that I want her in my life; we have nothing in common and I don’t see how she can benefit me in any way, and I refuse to sacrifice part of myself for a parent who never sacrificed anything for me. But… I also don’t think that my last e-mail to her should be how it ends. I was harsh (honest, but harsh) and cold, and I gave the impression that I have no empathy for her, and that is not true. I’m not sure what’s going to happen, but I have a feeling that sometime soon I am going to figure it out. I have a feeling that something is going to change.
I have my mother’s hands. Maybe it’s time I really forgive her (instead of just saying that’s what I’m doing) and really let her (and that giant hole she left in my life) go, once and for all. Because I want to be the kind of mother who breaks the cycles. I don't want to be the mother who allows her past to dictate her future. I want to be the kind of mother who can show her children what love should look like. I want to be the kind of mother who is whole and present; the kind of mother who never leaves.
Because one day I want my daughter to be able to look down and smile as she thinks “I have my mother’s hands.”
