A Greater Understanding

Dealing with rejection from my mom has given me some new insight into how things might feel for Primero and the little ones in regards to their own mothers. I have a greater understanding just how hard it is to deal with the rejection and also the desire to keep trying, to keep thinking you can do something to appease them, to get back into your mother’s good graces. It is heart-breaking and so hard. And I’m a grown up! How much more difficult it must be as a young child or a teenager. It really makes you feel like crud; if your own mother can’t love you, doesn’t want to be around you, then who would? It really deals a blow to your self-esteem and self-worth to feel like you have done something so bad to disappoint your mother and drive her away to the point she wants nothing to do with you. And yet, my mom is ill just as Primero’s mother is ill and the little one’s mother is ill. In fact, they are all suffering from different mental health issues and life situations, which is more the driving factor than anything me or the kid have done or not done. Still, it is hard to not take it personally, it is hard to fight the tendency to take it all inside you and make you devalue yourself because the one person who should always have your back just doesn’t. It is a hallow and aching pain that nothing can fill. I never really understood that before but now I do. Now I understand no matter how much other people might love you there is always that broken spot, that dark hole that only the full, unfettered love of your mother can fill. Me and my kiddos are the walking wounded, but we will heal one another as much as we can. At least we have each other....