I don’t know if i am actually working towards something, or I have just allowed my mind to ruminate so much I have run into a ditch. What is worse, it is difficult to find the silence and space to work through what I feel to get whatever is happening inside me to resolve.
Instead of trying to resolve anything, I will describe “things that are putting me on edge”, however, I must clarify that my “edge” is sulking and not being present. Each personality has a way of being driven towards a dark mood, and where someone might be making a scene, I will be doing the exact opposite. I’ll cease speaking and appear bored and uninterested.
I thought I had already worked through this. I once told my sister: “do you think mom is wise? do you think the makes good assessments? do you think she gives good advice?” and she said “What are you talking about, of course not, why would you even ask me”. I said “I’m going to make a point. Ok, so we agree that mom is not wise. Now, would you say that we are rebellious, that we don’t like to be told how we should do things, that we question prescriptions, that authority holds almost no sway over our decisions?”. My sister said “Yes, that’s us, we don’t give a shit about authority or tradition”. And then I said “Well, put two and two together: if, as they say, our souls chose our parent before we were born, that was because our souls are rebelious and we chose a profoundly unwise mother as steward to our souls, so that we could do the exact opposite of what she told us, because doing that we would always make the right choice. We both laughed at the truth and far-fetchedness of this statement.
I must also clarify that my mother loves us with all her heart, that she always wants what is best for us, it’s just that in regard of care she is very often misguided, misinformed, and I must say frankly incompetent.
My grandmother (from my mother’s side) came into our home when I was in university. She had been living a semi-independent life with an uncle, but had to come with us after a son of theirs came back to live with them. My grandmother was lucid and healthy at about 92 years of age.
However, her health deteriorated very quickly at our home. My mother would open doors and windows very early in the morning because she believes fresh air is healthy, she caught a cold which wouldn’t go away and it all went downhill from there. It’s just too painful to describe, seeing my mother dedicate all her love and attention to her mother, but it was that very love and attention that made her wither away faster than what was natural.
It’s too painful to list all the things I saw done with the best intentions, but were useless at best, but detrimental was the norm.
Evenutally my grandmother stopped eating she was tube-fed, and the doctor prescribed a simple recipe which had a significant amount of chicken. My mother swapped the chicken for vegetables, at the time she believed any kind of meat was bad, and even though I insisted this was a terrible idea, she kept on feeding her a diet that was not caloric enough.
When her condition deteriorated my aunt came from Canada to help with care, she would improve but then decline again after she left. This pattern repeated two or three times until my grandmother passed away. Her official cause of death was starvation. My mother was furious at the doctors for writing this down, she’s always interpreted this event as my grandmother getting depressed and simply stopped eating.
I don’t know if there’s any value upon unravelling layers and layers of trauma. I don’t think so, but it’s just unspinning and I can’t find a way to let go at this thread, which is also accentuated by my mother telling me stories during our walks about our family. Both my parents had really rough childhoods in their own way, and they are similar to mine in which they do not involve poverty, lack of love or drugs, but a certain… failure of our parents to direct their love correctly.
When I was seeing my mother basically kill my grandmother through her love I thought “you educated that woman, grandma”, and it’s a difficult thought to admit it applies to me too. How do we truly make sure we don’t repeat the mistakes of our parents?
I must find my way towards forgiveness and acceptance, there is no other way forward, but I’m now in a laberynth from which I do not know how to escape.
It’s 3:45am in the albergue now, I’ll try to get some sleep.