Quiet Sunday
What a beautiful day today has been! After several days of endless overcast skies and hurried business at work (in an office without even a single window, by the way), the sun burst through the clouds today and everything was bathed in its warmth. What an odd comfort the sun is, too. For the most part, I usually find myself shirking away from it -- dodging it, blocking it out, or simply bearing it. Then, in its extended absence, I find myself longing for it and all the ways -- naturally and spiritually -- it nourishes me. When you see the sun after not seeing it for days or even weeks, there's a little spark of joy that comes inside and seems to burn through whatever unpleasantness has set up inside of you. Suddenly, no matter what you have to face that day, there's a sense of hope about -- a feeling that you'll get to the light at the end.
Work has been rather busy, lately. Even though I don't work in the storefront, I still work in the office of a retail company. So, the onslaught of the holiday season (which, by the way seems to come earlier every single year whether we want it to or not) has made my days at work a little busier. All sorts of things came together at the end of October that delayed my work for November, causing a little over two weeks of work to snowball behind me whilst I still dealt with October. So, I spent all this past week digging myself out of that mess. No big deal, though... it's just work and it NEVER follows me home (I always make certain of that).
When I finally looked up from my work and noticed the calendar, I realized that most of November had come and gone while I was still buried amidst October. It made me think, too, about unsorted-out things that happened with my mom during her visit.
Doubtless most people know of my relationship with my mom -- its complexity, its ups and downs, and the things that are just out there on the table that no one mentions or picks up. She and I had such a good time while she was here and we also had a lot of really long conversations -- most of them rather candid.
It's such a scary place to come to in your life when you realize that your mom -- well, BOTH of your parents -- are human beings, too. When you realize that you're on the same plane as they are and sometimes you may be walking in foosteps they've made in front of you, or you may be walking on a path that they wanted to go down, but missed along the way. This feeling of paths and steps -- a geography of life iteself -- has made me a little more mindful of how limited a space and journey we're all given. No matter how far we go, we're still on the same plane and yet we can all experience different things. It's also terrifying that we're only given one choice as a direction: FORWARD. There's no going back to pick up a mess you made or take back something that altered your course or to trace your steps and go a different way. There's only forward... only what comes next.
I had always known that my mom had been unfaithful to my father while they were married. In fact, she had an affair with the same man (on and off) for their first EIGHT YEARS of marriage. One evening, while we were talking, we somehow got on that subject... "Mr. David"... her high school sweetheart that she had an affair with. I remembered that Mr. David and his wife had been "family friends" for a long time -- that mom and dad and the two of them went on a few trips together (as couples). It just struck me as odd that mom was such good friends with Mr. David's wife and yet they were doing what they were doing.
Furthermore, it put a lens of a different, less cheery color over my eyes when I then looked back on my childhood. Dad was away a lot... his work demanded it. In all the ways that I felt he was something of an absentee father in my life (mostly providing only monetary support) and remembering some of the hurt an anger that I felt, I was still astonished how my hurt was lessened by knowing how greatly my mother betrayed him without his ever knowing it. To this day, he doesn't know what went on for eight years. In his mind, it's completely his fault that he no longer has my mother each day. He looks back and regrets all the hard work he did to support us, feeling that there must've been something more that he could've done. Mom reminded me that there were days when Mr. David would come over and they would go outside and do their adulterous business and they would just barely escape my father finding out. No sooner would they be emerging from the shed, but my dad's old ratty truck would be driving up into the yard. And then there were the lies and the half-hearted kisses that he was met with. And yet, so naively, he took them as his own and treasured all those things. And it's this very woman that he misses... and it's because of this love for her that he still holds onto that he will never seek love again from anyone else.
And yet, this is my MOTHER. I'm now beyond feeling contempt for her and I'm beyond wanting to express to her how hypocritical she was during my entire upbringing (forcing me and my brothers into church and even more holier-than-thou decrees of self-rightousness that have come since then). How many times I've wanted to just blast her and tell her how much her actions marred me. From her, I learned that I could trust no one, that people were often not what they seemed to be. It's taken me years and still counting to learn to trust people even though I can clearly see the good in them. But, no, I'm beyond those feelings of anger, now, and I find myself knowing her regret... though it's still not truly remorse... only regret. Now finding herself in a holier light again, mom thanks God for her not having caught some disease or having been found out. I think it's the feeling that she's escaped with a shred of grace that she holds onto.
We talked about the years after their divorce -- years in which she dated countless men... all of whom she slept with. We talked about her loneliness, her feelings of despair. And, now that she's married again, I see her as a broken woman. Now she's determined to stay with this man regardless of what signs there are that they don't have a good relationship. She's clutching her Bible again and looking to God to fix something that he didn't start...
My mom has stood in places on the plane that I'll never know about. She's faced things that I can't see and she's done things with and without thinking them through -- just as I have. Still, there's a twinge of familiar guilt I feel when I look down and see one of her footprints and I purposefully avoid it, causing my path to get further and further from hers. Then again, wouldn't she want that for me? Wouldn't she want better for me... or at least different? I guess there are no easy answers.
I just know that -- with all my heart -- I don't want to wind up like either of my parents. Here I sit in my cozy apartment, listening to beautiful music, sipping my cranberry green tea, waiting for my beloved to come home to me, and all the while knowing that I am his and he is mine. Meanwhile, Dad sits alone, smoking his life away and watching his father wither into death. He's no longer moving forward and since he can't move backward, he's sitting still as the light of the present moves ever past him. Mom clutches onto a contentment that she feels is the best that she could deserve or hope for -- regardless of the unbalanced and detrimental effects this man has on her life. She lives, once again, trapped inside a little house all by herself, longing for freedom at any cost, forever in a shadow.
Though I feel happy and very content, I still maintain that it's this season -- the season of Thanksgiving -- that makes me a little blue. I forever find myself looking back, around this time, and still trying to make sense of things that are too far behind me to understand. The things that I uncover are covered in fear, distrust, and pain. I'm glad that each passing year puts them farther behind me.
Work has been rather busy, lately. Even though I don't work in the storefront, I still work in the office of a retail company. So, the onslaught of the holiday season (which, by the way seems to come earlier every single year whether we want it to or not) has made my days at work a little busier. All sorts of things came together at the end of October that delayed my work for November, causing a little over two weeks of work to snowball behind me whilst I still dealt with October. So, I spent all this past week digging myself out of that mess. No big deal, though... it's just work and it NEVER follows me home (I always make certain of that).
When I finally looked up from my work and noticed the calendar, I realized that most of November had come and gone while I was still buried amidst October. It made me think, too, about unsorted-out things that happened with my mom during her visit.
Doubtless most people know of my relationship with my mom -- its complexity, its ups and downs, and the things that are just out there on the table that no one mentions or picks up. She and I had such a good time while she was here and we also had a lot of really long conversations -- most of them rather candid.
It's such a scary place to come to in your life when you realize that your mom -- well, BOTH of your parents -- are human beings, too. When you realize that you're on the same plane as they are and sometimes you may be walking in foosteps they've made in front of you, or you may be walking on a path that they wanted to go down, but missed along the way. This feeling of paths and steps -- a geography of life iteself -- has made me a little more mindful of how limited a space and journey we're all given. No matter how far we go, we're still on the same plane and yet we can all experience different things. It's also terrifying that we're only given one choice as a direction: FORWARD. There's no going back to pick up a mess you made or take back something that altered your course or to trace your steps and go a different way. There's only forward... only what comes next.
I had always known that my mom had been unfaithful to my father while they were married. In fact, she had an affair with the same man (on and off) for their first EIGHT YEARS of marriage. One evening, while we were talking, we somehow got on that subject... "Mr. David"... her high school sweetheart that she had an affair with. I remembered that Mr. David and his wife had been "family friends" for a long time -- that mom and dad and the two of them went on a few trips together (as couples). It just struck me as odd that mom was such good friends with Mr. David's wife and yet they were doing what they were doing.
Furthermore, it put a lens of a different, less cheery color over my eyes when I then looked back on my childhood. Dad was away a lot... his work demanded it. In all the ways that I felt he was something of an absentee father in my life (mostly providing only monetary support) and remembering some of the hurt an anger that I felt, I was still astonished how my hurt was lessened by knowing how greatly my mother betrayed him without his ever knowing it. To this day, he doesn't know what went on for eight years. In his mind, it's completely his fault that he no longer has my mother each day. He looks back and regrets all the hard work he did to support us, feeling that there must've been something more that he could've done. Mom reminded me that there were days when Mr. David would come over and they would go outside and do their adulterous business and they would just barely escape my father finding out. No sooner would they be emerging from the shed, but my dad's old ratty truck would be driving up into the yard. And then there were the lies and the half-hearted kisses that he was met with. And yet, so naively, he took them as his own and treasured all those things. And it's this very woman that he misses... and it's because of this love for her that he still holds onto that he will never seek love again from anyone else.
And yet, this is my MOTHER. I'm now beyond feeling contempt for her and I'm beyond wanting to express to her how hypocritical she was during my entire upbringing (forcing me and my brothers into church and even more holier-than-thou decrees of self-rightousness that have come since then). How many times I've wanted to just blast her and tell her how much her actions marred me. From her, I learned that I could trust no one, that people were often not what they seemed to be. It's taken me years and still counting to learn to trust people even though I can clearly see the good in them. But, no, I'm beyond those feelings of anger, now, and I find myself knowing her regret... though it's still not truly remorse... only regret. Now finding herself in a holier light again, mom thanks God for her not having caught some disease or having been found out. I think it's the feeling that she's escaped with a shred of grace that she holds onto.
We talked about the years after their divorce -- years in which she dated countless men... all of whom she slept with. We talked about her loneliness, her feelings of despair. And, now that she's married again, I see her as a broken woman. Now she's determined to stay with this man regardless of what signs there are that they don't have a good relationship. She's clutching her Bible again and looking to God to fix something that he didn't start...
My mom has stood in places on the plane that I'll never know about. She's faced things that I can't see and she's done things with and without thinking them through -- just as I have. Still, there's a twinge of familiar guilt I feel when I look down and see one of her footprints and I purposefully avoid it, causing my path to get further and further from hers. Then again, wouldn't she want that for me? Wouldn't she want better for me... or at least different? I guess there are no easy answers.
I just know that -- with all my heart -- I don't want to wind up like either of my parents. Here I sit in my cozy apartment, listening to beautiful music, sipping my cranberry green tea, waiting for my beloved to come home to me, and all the while knowing that I am his and he is mine. Meanwhile, Dad sits alone, smoking his life away and watching his father wither into death. He's no longer moving forward and since he can't move backward, he's sitting still as the light of the present moves ever past him. Mom clutches onto a contentment that she feels is the best that she could deserve or hope for -- regardless of the unbalanced and detrimental effects this man has on her life. She lives, once again, trapped inside a little house all by herself, longing for freedom at any cost, forever in a shadow.
Though I feel happy and very content, I still maintain that it's this season -- the season of Thanksgiving -- that makes me a little blue. I forever find myself looking back, around this time, and still trying to make sense of things that are too far behind me to understand. The things that I uncover are covered in fear, distrust, and pain. I'm glad that each passing year puts them farther behind me.