acceptance
…Just settling back in after a week on the road with my son…
We went to Nor Cal to visit my family. I made a decision not to drive the extra 8 hours round trip to go to my home town and see my mother. Sometimes I can’t handle her and the lunatic town that I grew up in. It sounds awful and ungrateful unless you know my mother and understand that any rule that would apply in your family just doesn’t translate to my mother. She is a law unto herself and I have to feel really accepting of her or just stay away. Sometimes it’s easy for me to handle her and sometimes I know it’s going to take all of my energy to be around her. Both of my parents are very absent and always have been. My father literally wasn’t there and my mother figuratively (and sometimes literally) wasn’t there. Not much has changed, my parents are consumed with themselves and the needs of their children have always fallen by the wayside. I have been very self-reliant since I was quite small and have learned how to take care of myself and to cease having expectations of my parents; it certainly makes it easier to love them. Many years ago, a friend of mine pointed out that by going to my mother for love, I was going to an empty well. She asked me: “Why do you keep going to the empty well for a bucket of water?” It took some doing, but I discovered that I had plenty of water around me and that I didn’t have to spend my life feeling deprived.
So I visited family and friends in San Francisco and we had a wonderful time and I didn’t end up feeling drained.
We went to Nor Cal to visit my family. I made a decision not to drive the extra 8 hours round trip to go to my home town and see my mother. Sometimes I can’t handle her and the lunatic town that I grew up in. It sounds awful and ungrateful unless you know my mother and understand that any rule that would apply in your family just doesn’t translate to my mother. She is a law unto herself and I have to feel really accepting of her or just stay away. Sometimes it’s easy for me to handle her and sometimes I know it’s going to take all of my energy to be around her. Both of my parents are very absent and always have been. My father literally wasn’t there and my mother figuratively (and sometimes literally) wasn’t there. Not much has changed, my parents are consumed with themselves and the needs of their children have always fallen by the wayside. I have been very self-reliant since I was quite small and have learned how to take care of myself and to cease having expectations of my parents; it certainly makes it easier to love them. Many years ago, a friend of mine pointed out that by going to my mother for love, I was going to an empty well. She asked me: “Why do you keep going to the empty well for a bucket of water?” It took some doing, but I discovered that I had plenty of water around me and that I didn’t have to spend my life feeling deprived.
So I visited family and friends in San Francisco and we had a wonderful time and I didn’t end up feeling drained.