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Sep. 12th, 2003 08:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
teleidoplexThis was originally written in response to coyotewatches' post, but then I realized that it was it's own entity and needed to be here.
My mother wrote a bunch of letters to me, that she gave to me on my eighteenth birthday.
The first was written in the first year of her marriage to my father, a year or so before I was conceived. The second was when I was in-utero. The third was a month after my birth and the fourth was about a year later. The final one was written on my eighteenth birthday as a retrospective.
I've had them for a dozen years, yet I hardly ever read them. I really only run into them when I'm packing to move, but even then I'm loath to take them out and read them.
It's hard to say why. Bryan is right. There is no word to describe the feeling of reading through those letters. Of looking into a past and having it emphasize the gulf between itself and the present.
My mother was so young. So in love with my father. So idealistic. So sure about what was right, and what the world was like, and where her life was going. And although I see many resemblances between my mother and myself, in this girl who wrote to me I see myself looking back.
And it scares me a little.
It scares me because I know what happened to her after she stopped writing.
I just don't know why.
Now, my mother today is an awesome human being, and I'm pretty sure that if you asked her she'd say that she's had some rough times and made some bad choices, but that she is happy with the course of her life and where she is and who she is, and that she wouldn't change it.
But that doesn't help me.
When I read those letters, I realize how young I am. I think about how much in love I am with David. About how I'm so idealistic, and so sure what's right, etc., etc.
And it's really hard not to fear it all collapsing someday like a house of cards. I start wondering about why my parents' love failed. Here are two people who I love and respect more than anything, and yet I've always questioned why they got married if they didn't love each other in the kind of way that David and I love -- the kind of love that makes you want to build the courses of your lives together. To build a life. A community. Then I read my mother's letters and I get the feeling that maybe they did, or thought they did (which is really the same thing). That they weren't mistaken in their love, or wrong to get married.
And I start to wonder what went wrong. And I start to worry.
As time goes by, I worry less and less. I'm getting a little older and a little wiser, and my life is starting to take it's own amorphous shape. I don't resemble that girl (either the younger her or the younger me) quite so much anymore. I think maybe I conceive of love and marriage differently than either of them did, and that because of this I'm not going to go through all the pain and disappointment that my mom did.
She was very wise, even if she didn't really realize exactly how. I'm going to be doing the same thing that she did if I ever have a kid, so that they get a chance to see me and know me as someone other than their mother.
Such legacies are a rare, if painful, gift.
My mother wrote a bunch of letters to me, that she gave to me on my eighteenth birthday.
The first was written in the first year of her marriage to my father, a year or so before I was conceived. The second was when I was in-utero. The third was a month after my birth and the fourth was about a year later. The final one was written on my eighteenth birthday as a retrospective.
I've had them for a dozen years, yet I hardly ever read them. I really only run into them when I'm packing to move, but even then I'm loath to take them out and read them.
It's hard to say why. Bryan is right. There is no word to describe the feeling of reading through those letters. Of looking into a past and having it emphasize the gulf between itself and the present.
My mother was so young. So in love with my father. So idealistic. So sure about what was right, and what the world was like, and where her life was going. And although I see many resemblances between my mother and myself, in this girl who wrote to me I see myself looking back.
And it scares me a little.
It scares me because I know what happened to her after she stopped writing.
I just don't know why.
Now, my mother today is an awesome human being, and I'm pretty sure that if you asked her she'd say that she's had some rough times and made some bad choices, but that she is happy with the course of her life and where she is and who she is, and that she wouldn't change it.
But that doesn't help me.
When I read those letters, I realize how young I am. I think about how much in love I am with David. About how I'm so idealistic, and so sure what's right, etc., etc.
And it's really hard not to fear it all collapsing someday like a house of cards. I start wondering about why my parents' love failed. Here are two people who I love and respect more than anything, and yet I've always questioned why they got married if they didn't love each other in the kind of way that David and I love -- the kind of love that makes you want to build the courses of your lives together. To build a life. A community. Then I read my mother's letters and I get the feeling that maybe they did, or thought they did (which is really the same thing). That they weren't mistaken in their love, or wrong to get married.
And I start to wonder what went wrong. And I start to worry.
As time goes by, I worry less and less. I'm getting a little older and a little wiser, and my life is starting to take it's own amorphous shape. I don't resemble that girl (either the younger her or the younger me) quite so much anymore. I think maybe I conceive of love and marriage differently than either of them did, and that because of this I'm not going to go through all the pain and disappointment that my mom did.
She was very wise, even if she didn't really realize exactly how. I'm going to be doing the same thing that she did if I ever have a kid, so that they get a chance to see me and know me as someone other than their mother.
Such legacies are a rare, if painful, gift.
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no subject
Date: 2003-09-12 05:36 pm (UTC)Are we our mother?
Date: 2003-09-14 10:33 pm (UTC)Any woman contemplating a committed relationship should read: "Women Who Love To Much" by R. Norwood. Be sure to read it all the way through and after seeing all the examples of what leads to dysfunctional relationships read the chapter on what leads to functional relationships. It is an empowering book even for those in healthy relationships.
I first read it in 1985 - and I dramatically changed. The custody battles ended. Then I forgot about it until last month. I've just re-read it. I could have saved myself a lot of pain if I hadn't forgotten about it. But, we all get it when we get it and not a moment earlier.
no subject
Date: 2003-09-15 06:43 pm (UTC)Somehow I missed this post earlier
Date: 2003-12-14 06:16 am (UTC)What I have come to realize in my relationship with Devon, as well from my thoughts on the relationships that have come before, is that love is not enough, to save a relationship from failure. For me it is more than the deep love I have for Devon that makes my part of our relationship work, we also have damned good communication, and he makes me laugh, but most importantly I think is that we work as a team to make the relationship work and still maintain the relationship we have with ourselves as individuals. What I like about Devon is that he is emotionally suppportive of me going out doing my own thing without him, he is not threatened by my having my own life, career, and friends that have very little to do with me. Besides the Devon is damn cute.
In the end, I like to believe that my parents really did love each other and that perhaps my mother was too young and father to in to himself to really work at their marriage. Or perhaps the sole purpose of the meeting and getting married was to produce me, once that was done they could go their separate ways. :)