Monday, July 9, 2007

Cleaning to Forget

Today, I read a powerful post on I'm Doing the Best I Can (see link over there ->). Dawn was talking about her father (Father of Mine). And a lot of that post reminded me of my mother. Not the physical parts, my mother never beat me, but the emotional feelings. I've not talked to my mother in over a year. And it's brought me incredible peace. I had gotten to the point of not being able to believe anything she had said, even though part of me wanted to. I pushed past the belief that was ingrained in me that we must keep our parents in our lives because they are related to us. And it was hard. I didn't end up just cutting her off, but I cut off my extended family on her side too (which is most of my family). I also cut off most of the contact I have with my siblings. I now find out very small snippets from my dad and from my sister's blogs (when she updates them).

In order to push past the painful feelings, I turned to working on cleaning and organizing my house. And it worked for a little bit. I have 2 nice looking closets, almost all of our blankets are folded and put away. I know where all my shoes are (and they look nice all paired up in the closet). My spare room is ready for the massage table that will briefly occupy it tomorrow (I get a massage tomorrow!). And now that I'm relaxing some, the feelings are returning. They aren't as strong, and I'm thankful for that.

Dawn mentioned that she dreams of her father, and I also dream of my mother. Not often, and it's gotten to where there isn't anger in the dreams when she's around, but I wonder why she is there. I am glad the anger I felt for her has stopped, it wasn't healthy and shocked me with how intense it was. It has also made it easier to forgive her. I occasionally remember some happy memory that includes her, and part of me wants to call her to let her know until I remember that calling her would just end up in pain. Those memories are somewhat bittersweet now.

Anyway, I'm going to go do something else. So that I will hopefully have better thoughts.

TTFN!

1 comment:

Peter said...

wow - powerful. Thanks for sharing - keep working it through.
Blessings,
Peter