Internet is truly an amazing place, in many respects. One of the good things is that you can find pretty much anything, these days. Like Facebook groups for daughters to narcissistic mothers. I’m in one of these, and on a daily basis I read stories of what these daughters experience with their mothers.
Lucky me.
And I mean it.
Lucky me.
It’s been 21 years and about 4 months since my mom died. It’s been 21 years and about 4 months since she was able to conciously influence my life. It’s been 21 years and about 4 months since her death lifted an enormous weight off my shoulders.
I’d lie to say that the journey since then has been easy, because it hasn’t. The web of stuff I’ve had to un-learn, re-learn, tear down and re-build, the levels of destructive behaviour because I couldn’t see my own reflection in anyone else, the thousands of pits deep depression that rode me for many, many years, the weight of all the shame and guilt… I could go on forever, and still it wouldn’t be enough to tell you just how difficult and hard it’s been, how lonely I’ve been on this journey, and how much I had to do by myself.
But she’s gone.
She’s gone, and my gratitude knows no limits for this fact. I know it sounds very bad, but it’s true. And I refuse to be ashamed for the relief I feel that my own mother is dead and gone since all these years.
There are many things to be grateful for, at least for me. I am not only grateful she’s dead. I am also grateful for the level of selfknowledge and selfinsight that I have (she never did). I am grateful my mind works the way it does – it has helped enormously with the journey I’ve had to undertake. I am grateful that, while I’ve done most of all this work on my own, I’ve had my spiritual interest to guide me. Especially through the last couple of years.
And while this sounds even worse than being happy my mom is dead, I’m also glad that my dad’s death gave me the space to grow into myself. I miss him, and I wish our relation had been different, but he very effectively stopped me from fully being ME.
I am also grateful for the things that I am slowly learning to re-think, about myself. I always thought I lived in the past or the future – never in the now. But I am slowly beginning to realize that this has changed. I may not always be present in the now (I live inside my head to a rather extreme degree), but I have noticed a shift in how I think and feel about the past, this moment, and the future.
But mainly.. well, there are so many things to be grateful for, that are the best of it all, but one of these things is the realization that I am not my mother. We are separate – she was one person, I am another.
I consider myself lucky – and free. Free of everything both my parents expected me to be that I was not. Free to create ME the way I see fit. Free to get rid of whatever does not belong with me – you know, that stuff that goes through generation after generation, but is not necessarily individual.
I know people who feel sorry for me for not having/had a proper mother. I don’t. I don’t know what it’s like, so I don’t feel like I’ve missed anything, really. I did, once. Miss it, that is. Around when mom died, I felt very sorry for myself for not having a proper mom – the kind I’d love to celebrate publically on Facebook on Mother’s Day. But not anymore.
I think I’m going to start celebrating my own freedom. That’s actually worth something. A lot. A whole shitload of gratitude, to be honest. Sure, that freedom and gratitude still holds some dirty, filthy stuff at it’s furthest back. But it’s in the back, it’s losing it’s grip, and I’m winning.
So oh, hell yeah, I do consider myself lucky.
I don’t know what the rest of my life will look like. But it will look very, very different from what it’s been before.
I consider myself lucky for that, too. ♥
