A Not So Happy Mother's Day...

Today is Mother’s Day… Yay… Rah… Moms are the most awesome people in the world. Do I sound a bit unenthusiastic? Well, I admit that I am. Mother’s Day has always brought a tidal wave of mixed emotions for me and today is no different.

Yes, I had a mother and I think of her on days like today – sometimes with love and fond memories, but most often with tears and questions about how I managed to survive growing up with her and not end up a permanent resident of a state-run mental institution. I am torn between missing her and feeling relieved that I am finally free of her dysfunction. I know she loved me, but I wish she hadn’t damaged me in the ways she did. I do miss her, but I do not miss the way she tried to control me or the way she always made me feel like I wasn’t good enough in her eyes.

For a long time, I felt bad if people expressed sympathy after she died because I didn’t really feel like much was missing from my life without her. I didn’t want people to think I didn’t love her so I never said what I was usually thinking: “You don’t understand what I am feeling. She didn’t raise you.” I’ve accepted finally – 18 months after her death –  that it is ok to feel those things. There is no need to feel guilty that I can’t “share” those silly “I have the best mom in the world” memes that pop up on Facebook all year round, but especially on days like today.  There is no need to feel guilty if I cannot tell people that I think my mother was the best one ever to walk this planet.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think she ever did anything to me purposely that was cruel or hurtful. She was emotionally and mentally abusive, but she couldn’t see that in herself; her own childhood and domineering father prevented such recognition. Truth is, she just didn’t know any better. She did the best she could with the tools she had, but her tool box was very sparse. I know she made great sacrifices for me at times, but sometimes I felt like I was the sacrifice. She would have said that she only wanted to protect me, but the way she did so held me back and crippled my spirit in ways I am just now realizing.

I am not looking for empathy here – few would even be able to feel such emotion – and sympathy is the last thing I expect, so save the “I’m sorry your mother was like that” comments. I may not have had a great mother or the most perfect mother in the world, but I had a mother. She was adequate and she made sure I never went hungry or lived in a house without heat. Despite everything that may have been imperfect about her, she was still my mother and I still love her. It is just on days like today I mourn not the loss of her but the loss of what should have been between but never could be because of her issues.

So to my friends that also had dysfunctional mothers, just remember that it is ok to say that they hurt us more than they helped us. It is ok to miss them while being glad they are no longer in our lives. We may not have had idyllic childhoods, but they made us who we are and mostly, we’re pretty damn awesome. Sometimes we are who we are because of our mothers and sometimes we are who we are in spite of our mothers.