The end of the rope does exist, and mother daughter relationships don’t always go well. I have two daughters who were born seven years apart. They look like two peas in a pod, but they are as different as night and day. My youngest daughter is so thoughtful, and caring towards me. We hang out together from time to time and we have a wonderful relationship whether we are in a movie theater, a grocery store, or on the couch watching television. I’ve said before that I had my first daughter outside of marriage and I wanted a child for all the wrong reasons. I was looking for love and I thought I could create my own family that would love me. That was a big mistake, because love is found only in oneself. I can experience God’s love for me, I can have love for myself, or I can receive from, or extend love toward someone else. But, the love is all my inward conviction and experience, and if I don’t begin with a good inward experience with love, then I become somewhat of a burden in a relationship. My daughter has become a burden on my emotions, which is sad because we use to be buddies attached at the hip…and then she turn teenager and everything changed. And now we just do not get along, and I realize that I don’t have to take mistreatment from her anymore. This toxic relationship is really draining me. I wish I could get to the bottom of her issue with me, but I have not been able to figure things out and at this point I don’t really want to. She doesn’t like me and I don’t care for her treatment of me. So enough is enough its time to stop answering the telephone. She is the child that I wanted to have so that I could have somebody to love and love me. It’s a hard lesson to learn when you invest so much into another human being only to come up empty. I still have love for her, just from a distance…a long distance, yeah that’ll work.
Today, is July 10, 2010, and I still am feeling that distancing myself from my daughter is best, not out of anger but out of a right to free myself from negativity. I forgive her and I pray that she can forgive me. I can love my daughter and move on too.
To be honest our children begin to leave us the minute their feet hit the ground running. They leave to explore other areas of the room, house, or yard. When they master speech, they tell us no to the carrots and peas, and yes to another hour of Sesame street, when we’ve said enough. Then we leave them in the hands of caregivers that our children call Mommy, and walk away feeling like the lowest form of life. Next, the first day of kindergarten, the journey that will no doubt widen the gap between parents, and our children, as they navigate the labyrinth of geeks and jocks, the popular, and the unattractive. Searching for identity, hoping for acceptance, coping with rejection, trying to please everybody, bodies morphing, got to make the cut, got to make the grade.
My daughter has left for college. She has actually been gone from the house since May 2009, because she felt that she should come and go as she pleased. I don’t even do that. So I told her to go and stay with her sister for a while, until she started school. It was a difficult decision, but one that I felt was for the best. I didn’t want to go through any power struggles or shouting matches. If she wasn’t going to be accountable, then she would have to be unaccountable at her sister’s place. So I guess its been about five months since she has lived with me, although she has come to stay on several occasions. Actually, I enjoy my own company very much, but this is the first time since, I don’t even want to say how long it has been since I was totally alone, okay since 1980. Even though I know this is for the best, not to mention that my blood pressure has gone down considerably. It is the strangest experience, to go from being needed for everything to being needed for a lot less. To have to watch your child go off to build a life, separated from my own, is a bit weird. Believe me, I do believe that I have been the best mother I could have been, and I believe that my daughter has a sensible head on her shoulders. I do believe that she will make good choices, however, I have already prayed and asked God to help her when she may want to choose the wrong. She is still a teenager, and lets face it none of us can take life head on, even if we are “grown,” we still need help.
