#and also when other ones try to impersonate her grandma who has anxiety | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

undergroundjourney · 4 years

Text

Transcendence

On relationships with our Parents.

“To care for those who once cared for us is one of the highest honor.”

I’ve seen so many people go this year, and now I’ve seen two of my closest friends lose their moms this year, (both their dads passed years ago as well). And I am thankful everyday that both of my own parents are still with me, especially in the year of a global pandemic that could’ve easily weakened them to a point I never wish to see.

“Thankfulness turns what we have into enough.”

(The following isn’t a true sentiment for everyone with parents- I know many people have dealt with highly traumatic/abusive parents, and this may not apply to you at all, even if you have tried to build a relationship with your parent(s) and it didn’t work out. I’m sorry for anyone who had that upbringing, but I’m glad you’re still here and I hope you’re healing. You might be okay with it, you might not, you might still be healing/dealing with it, but I do think it is important to remember the parents you had/have are just as human as anyone else, with their own faults and their own lives that they lived, that you are not responsible for).

🤍

Something that is hard to remember is how humane our parents are. Especially growing up with strict parents, and we’ve all had different variations of that strictness from babies to teens and even as adults. It is important to remember where our parents came from, to listen to their stories from before we ever entered their lives. They’ve been just as stupid, successful, scared, brave, anxious, and reckless as us. At some point in our lives, those of us who are lucky enough to still have our parents in our adult years, we have to let go of the parents who raised us and form new bonds and communications with the parents who are growing older with us. It takes a lot of energy, a lot of tears and prayers (I remember praying when I had to tell my mom I was changing my degree my second year of college... I kept telling myself God wouldn’t want me to die so He was going to make it easy for me to tell my mom— it gave me courage to tell her, for sure, but I still got the dreaded lecture 😂😅), overcoming fears of rejection (which melted away after the more time I spent with my parents), learning to communicate, and learning respect on a whole new spectrum. It’s not easy changing our mindsets when things have been engrained in us for years, but that’s the beauty of life- learning and unlearning, recreating and overcoming. I’m forever thankful I still have my family with me. It’s been a hard year, so I’m loving a little harder too.

I am still going through these changes with my parents, especially my dad right now. My dad and I have always had a super tight relationships. (Mind you, he is my stepdad, but he’s been in my life since I was 3-4 years old, and he’s white- and yes, saying that does matter because representation matters). The past I felt incredibly sad and frustrated with him and myself because I felt our relationship was being strained/lost/forgotten, and partly because of the things he’s been going through, trying new medications to deal with pain and sleep and such, and it just made me feel like I was losing my dad. I finally told him just a couple days ago that I hated talking to him when he was on this pill and drinking at the same time- he was difficult to talk to, so annoying. It was like talking to a super stoned teenager while still trying to respect that he’s an adult. I had to come back over the next day to do my mom’s hair, and we were talking and out of nowhere he goes “thank you for telling me how you felt. I needed that, to know what I’m doing wrong. I’m glad you told me how you felt.” And he gave me a great big hug. I felt my dad was coming back to me, the one that was my best friend and I’m so grateful. I know communication is incredibly difficult, anxiety-ridden with our parents, but it’s always worth the shot and the chance for a better relationship with them. My dad was on his way to bed and I gave him a hug, but I said “Dad.. I just.. I really don’t like it when you take these pills and you’re drinking, and doing whatever else. It makes it so hard to talk to you and be patient with you. I don’t like it.” I think he said “Well it makes me sleepy and the drinking is not a problem. I don’t know honey, I gotta go to bed.” It wasn’t a brush off or anything like that. But I was not expecting to show up the next day to him acknowledging it. I’m glad I said something, I’m glad he received it from a place of love. ♥️

My mom has always been super strict, like scary lady strict, stay out of her way unless you’ve been called to speak with her kind of strict. (In my child-like mind). But as an adult and I think back to my childhood and my mom- she wasn’t in the picture like my dad was because she was a home health nurse and at one point working two jobs for the better half of the first 7-8 years of my life. I know I grew up thinking my mom was not there, and that when she was there, she was a mean mommy and I didn’t like her but I wanted her to love me. I was her daughter after all you know! But there are little moments that I’ve kept in my mind memories. One time she came and picked me up from the bus stop, and I was driving in the back seat of her car. I had a cute bunny sticker and he was holding a carrot- she let me put it on her rear view mirror. And it stayed there for forever, until she gave the car away to someone in need. How could a mean mommy that liked everything put exactly in its place let me put a sticker on her car’s mirror?? 😉 I’ve held that memory and many others similar to it, for years, thought about that one every time I got into that car. But I didn’t think of the WOMAN my mother was. Not until just close to two years ago I started changing my mindset on the people my parents were/are. (And I’m 27 now). I once read a quick child’s story standing in a grocery store, about a mother- the child had a checker board flooring, black and white boxes. The mother was like my mother and the child was like me. If she/he accidentally stepped on the black box, the mother would be in a bad mood- mean mommy, so the child worked hard to step only on the white boxes, for the child believed that when he/she carefully stepped into the “right” boxes, the mother would be kind and nice, pleasant to be around. I think the story ended in a sad light but anyways, that’s how I saw my mother too. I believed in this light/dark actions brings out the mean/nice person of my mother. Crazy, right?!? No it’s not, not to a child. The fact I found what I did almost everyday in a book that related to me, made me feel seen and not alone in that my mom can be really scary sometimes. Now as an adult, I respect that my inner child went through such a turbulent time in being raised by someone like that, and my dad who was the totally calm and chill, go with the flow guy. Now as an adult (it’s been three years to get this point, mind you- so 25 years old and still fearful of my mother), I have learned to unlearn being fearful of a person I called my mother and have learned to talk with a woman who raised me. I felt sick to my gut at times trying to speak to her, I’ve also had to learn her sense of humor (it’s very impersonal), and I’ve learned of her strength, the things that have built her. But a mother she is and very rarely will I see her weaknesses as a mother, but I’ve seen them for her as a nurse, especially a hospice nurse, and as a daughter herself when my grandma became sick.

We build up intense ideas about our parents and it is only our responsibility (not theirs) to break down those ideas and decide who we want our parents to be to us as we are growing older, and then it is on us how we communicate to them in order to get them to this new idea of a relationship.

It’s a lot of f****ng hard work. A lot of mental work and emotions from ourself go into this transformation with our parents. There will be bad days, hard days and then you’ll spend a week away from them, and then you’ll reach out to them to see if they need that one thing done and when works best for them, and you’ll try again and again until you find what works best for you and them. We are growing up, let’s grow older with them. It’s a powerful bond.

#parents #transcendence

1 note · View note