Satisfaction

Aaah the satisfaction of a blank page What shall I write? I like the idea of the art of revolution, don't start a business, start a revolution. I would like to start revolutionizing corporate America. Seems like a lot to take on.

Anyway, that's a post for another time. Today I sit here sort of terrified because I want to write a letter to my mother. I mean I don't really want to write it, but tonight is the first time I think I have a beginning, a point and an ending. So here goes.

Dear Mom,

I am so tired of the cold silence between us. There are layers and layers of misunderstandings and I don't even know where to start. But I am going to try one last time because I love you and I want a relationship with you and I desperately need you in my life and I think if you are suffering as much as I am at not having a relationship that at least somewhat works then I must try again.

I know it;s been hard because you have been getting negative feedback from me for a long time. It's true that there are many things I am angry about but I think there are a few roots. I hope.

First, when we last spoke I asked you for 4 things, one of them was a way to ask for space that works for you and you didn't provide this, you just stopped calling and decided I didn't want you to call but that wasn't what I was asking. That was a misunderstanding and just robbed us of the opportunity to work together on a need I have.

After our 3 hour conversation before I got pregnant and before our trip to BG, I truly thought we had taken a turn to better understanding each other. That time I felt we hashed out a lot of things and I was so happy. One of the things that has remained with me after that conversation is that you said I had someone over at Christmas one year and didn't want to see you. At the time we spoke I didn't think I had but then I remembered that there was a Christmas I had a cold and didn't want to see anyone, including you and Grandma. But I felt lonely so Dragan came over to watch a movie.
I didn't mean to tell you an untruth, I had just forgotten but the underlying question is why does it matter what I do with my time in my house? How I choose to spend my time is my business since I became an adult. If I chose to stay home and watch movies on Christmas then that's what I did, You may not like it, but part of having a good relationship with anyone is respecting their choices.

I am basically mad about a few things. First the many times you humiliated and shamed me in Canada. The many times you criticized me. The viciousness with which you would yell at me so that you were literally foaming white at the mouth.

Once you told me that you felt like your leg was cut off because we didn't have a relationship that suited you. Well how do you think I felt, not to have a mother?

Now, as a mother myself and spending 6 long lonely months at home and feeling isolated, the reality of my motherless predicament is even more excruciatingly painful.

Yes I describe my pain with such vivid detail and I know it's hard to hear. Yesterday in my writing class a girl wrote that in her darkest of tsunami during her mental illness breakdown, Jesus knelt down beside her and wept.That to me just spoke of the deepest compassion one can have for another - to kneel beside them and weep with them.

Nah, I can't even believe I am attempting the gargantuan task of writing this letter. Ok. Deep breath. Stay with the process.

You were such a great mom. I remember going to plays and puppet shows, I remember you drawing me math puzzles, and painting my doll's nails when we had to rehabilitate old dolls at the kindergarten. I remember one play where they made water by waving blue pieces of cloth. It was so magical. You really did an amazing job of fostering my artistic side as a child and my sense of wander. You also really fostered my language skills and my intelligence. I remember you sewing the "e" on my dress, I remember holding you I remember your sweet smell and loving you.

When we were separated in BG I dreamt about being with you every day. I couldn't wait to hold you and to tell you how much I missed you and I loved you and I told myself it would all be OK once we were together again.

But my hopes slowly faded. The first sign of your state of mental health was that when we were delayed for our flight in NY, Looking back now, maybe you had a nervous breakdown. I could not understand why you were so worried but it made me so uneasy, after all I was traveling with my only parent to a new country. I tried to console you and comfort you. But who was consoling and comforting me?

When we arrived in Bloomington, many things were a blur because I was so traumatized. Recently more memories are surfaceing like the fact that you bought me barbies, made me chicken soup and put it in my pink "my little pony" thermos for lunch in my babrbie lunchbox. I remember the ham sandwitches you made me enrolled me in art class, swimming lessons and tried to teach me to drive. But what also stands out from that time was that when we had to buy a car, you wanted me, a 10 yr old to help you make a decision and that felt very unsettling and scary. But that's not the part that was hard, what was so hard was getting yelled at by you, being told I was "spoiled" when I was traumatized and also I remember you yelling at me because I was washing the dishes with cold water but I didn't know how to wash dishes, I had never washed dishes before. I just wish you had found it in yourself to be a little more kind to me but I recognize now that you were in a very poor state of mental health due to your separation and also your hernia surgery,

When we lived in Boulder I remember being forced to go on walks when I didn't want to and I remember the scary story you told me about the girl that got a beer bottle kicked up her vagina after she got abducted by a man and a woman and I was only 11. I was so traumatized by this. Also, as I reflect back now I realize you were pretty depressed and you were not really emotionally available. That is when I started to lose hope that we would ever reconnect as mother and daughter.

When we all reconnected in Toronto, your mental health must have suffered further because of your constant stress with Dad maybe. Those were hard years for all of us but also some of the most stable we have had as a family. In those years I remember you yelling at me because you asked me to clean something and I didn't clean it to your approval. Our relationship became more and more strained as you used helping me with homework as an excuse to flaunt your superiority. You used these opportunities to humiliate and shame me and I only now understand that that's how you must have been taught in Bulgaria but it sure hurt and destroyed any sense of closeness I felt with you.

Later, in San Diego once Dad moved out you made fun of me for being an "artist". You taunted me with that word because I wore a white skirt sewn inside out with ruffles. I remember Arnut was there and he told you to leave me alone. But at that time you also stood by me when Melanie came to visit which was brave and loving and meant the world to me and you also helped me buy my first car. You also let me use your Neon to get a job and you were very kind to share your car with me.

When I moved out to my apartment in Hillcrest you sometimes, well no often pressured and guilted me to get together with you and you especially wanted me to comply with this when Gramma was here. You resorted to guilt and what felt to me like an enormous amount of forcefulness and you frequently violated my boundaries.
'
I have recently been researching narcissism and I am not saying you are one but you definitely often seemed a very focused on your desires, ignoring mine and my needs. If you had just left me alone, and given me some space I would have come of my own free will. I felt that you didn't care about me or what I wanted and you wanted everything to look prefect to grandma and like we were a happy mother-daughter pair when I felt that you had abandoned me emotionally long ago by not being interested in my true feelings.

That left me not wanting to spend time with you because I began to realize you were not really interested in a real relationship where two people exchange needs. You seemed interested only in getting your needs met, regardless of the cost to me and how things felt on the inside. When I refused to comply with a phony relationship based on not only pretenses but what seemed like a one-way street, you blamed me and refused to take responsibility for your part in it until your sister had a talk with you.

Only then did your behavior towards me start to change, I think also it was around the time that you got to know Mario which I think helped you see the artist in me.

Over the last few years you have backed off a lot. You helped me financially when I was in Spain which I appreciate tremendously and you also helped a great amount when Alessandra was born and I appreciated so much all the little ways you wanted to let me know you cared; by buying hose handles and the slow cooker and the racks for the pot lids and little things for Ale. I want you to know that these things have not gone unappreciated but it's all bittersweet because while you are so physically generous, you still need to be right, to point out my part in an upset and to be defensive even while I was completely sleep deprived and in excruciating pain. I wish you would have just let some things go, epsecially then when I was incapable of coherent emotions. Sometimes you have a really hard time seeing beyond your need to be right.

I have never said you were a horrible mother. You did some things very well, especially when I was young. I have only two bad memories all of my other memories are wonderful dn sweet.

I forgive you for my teenage years because I know that you had a lot of depression and anxiety.

I forgive you for your constant force on me to comply with your wishes in my 20s because I realize you were still depressed and anxious from the divorce.

All I am asking you to do is stop insisting that you are always right. Try to take responsibility for your mistakes and try not to make them again. Try not to use guilt to get what you want.

I know an over focus on yourselves you and Dad both have as an overcompensation to survive the shame and humiliation and being constantly pushed down by communism. To survive one creates a removed sense of self-importance and superiority.

I understand this and I understand it was a psychological survival mechanism you and Dad had to fashion to survive. But using it in your personal relationships, you will always be trying to prove your superiority instead of fostering connection and it will most likely leave you feeling alone and alienated from those you want to be close with the most - like me.

I think you have realized that by now. We all make mistakes. We are all human. No one was born a mother. We all have to learn and keep learning. We all all swimming in this life of beauty and brutality, naked. We are all vulnerable and imperfect and we all struggle.

What makes the struggle harder is alienation. You say I alienate you but by always needing to be right and superior you alienate yourself. Your defense mechanism is to say, "I don't agree with you."

It doesn't matter if you agree or disagree with my feelings and ideas. You are entitled to your opinion and you are entitled to disagree. But how many disagreements have led to the connection we both seek?

None. What if we choose choose to see and understand instead?

You did a lot of things amazingly well. And you also made mistakes. So does everyone. Take note, apologize, move on and try not to make the same mistake again. If you do, apologize again and keep going.

Love Emi

Wow that wasn't so bad, took about 30 mins and I feel much better