Feeling all kinds of unsettled this morning.
Yesterday was uneventful and reassuring. Spoke with a few long-distance loved ones; spent the afternoon with people who are my family here, some with clear legal definitions, others family by choice. Food was plentiful, conversation was lively, politics the relief of a pure rainbow curving left, to the extent they were discussed at all.
I was safe; I was cared for. My needs were met, and then some. Now, in these years of our extended-blended family existence, I’m a welcomed oddity in this group, loved unconditionally for who I am. The women around me, wholly themselves, mothers or mothering, shifting back and forth between the role of parent and of fully formed human being, independent of their relationships with anyone but themselves and each other. Any one of them would harbor me, if I needed it.
I wanted some revelation about holidays, some new bit of closure, some sort of reclaiming I could examine for myself and share with you. Those who reached out, as I hoped you would… your trust in me is a thing I hold sacred. I thank you again for the gift of it.
But then, a curious sense of grief, late last night and this morning. Loss.
Before I launched this platform and released my story (did I release myself, though?), I spoke with a few people I felt deserved to know. Again, unconditional support. Father, brother, husband. These human beings I love, all capable of self-examination, all with the capacity to change, to learn to be better.
The obvious one missing, though. The one woman who should have kept me safe, above all others.
I’ve long since accepted (have experienced all of these stages of grief, over the course of decades, the longest periods spent in bargaining and denial) the fact that I can’t change anyone else, can’t change her. Hell, I’ve shaped myself as a woman and all of these accompanying roles to be affirmatively NOT the things she is, to not repeat the damage. I’m a parent and a spouse; of course I’ve made mistakes, and some of the same ones as she did, but I’ve examined them, changed them, changed myself. I’ve found that courage, in this life.
There’s no happy ending here, no tearful reconciliation in which I somehow get through, make her see me, force her to examine herself, her role in all this, to do the hard work it would take to have me back, the way she once insisted she wanted more than anything (it’s been months since she tried). There’s no clean slate, no new way forward, no celebratory embrace as the music swells and the credits roll.
I don’t have any wisdom to share. I’m grateful for the surrogates, more than ever. But I’m also mourning the loss of this one safe place I never had to begin with.
That’s what I’ve got to say, today.
Much love,
Jess
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