Tough Truths ~ Common Ground

Over the course of the days I spent staying with my mom recently, some tension simmered and eventually boiled over, demanding we come together and clean up the mess.

In the midst of our crying and talking, we both admitted to feeling "not good enough". Imagine that! We are fellow tribe members in that all-too-familiar club that claims so many of us in its number.

Although we unwittingly joined that club for very different reasons over the years, there is no denying that we're both coming into our relationship with each other from our own wounded and confused places.

When she looks at me, regardless of all of my wonderful qualities and accomplishments, she sees me as a product of her failed attempt at motherhood. Despite all my growth and change, she admits to never being able to accept the choice I've made to leave her religion. Everything I do or don't do is weighed against this. It is a measure of judgment I will never be able to overcome.

And when I look at her, I grieve the fact that my mother is 81 and in the final stages of her life on Earth, with all its complications and limitations. Now that I am coming into my own womanhood, I long for a mother (perhaps in her mid-to-late 60's) with whom I can share the new power, purpose, and freedom I am finding.

Nope. Just like having a child, that version reality is being denied to me.

So, there we are. Each wishing the other were something/someone else. Not totally, of course ~ because on many levels we are grateful for what we have in each other.

But ultimately, those are the tough truths we have spoken.

Common ground.

Requiring new eyes,

surrender,

compassion,

acceptance,

and perhaps even a new set of emotional boundaries.

All of this is being continually thrown
into the fire of purification and transformation.

OM SWAHA