Finding That Place

It started with the bang of a door. Someone came in or left through the heavy front doors of the church as people do, as people have done before. The bang was loud in a quiet moment of the church service, a startling sound that everyone in the room heard and then immediately forgot. It was a non-event. Irrelevant. The doors in the front are heavy and close quickly unless whomever is walking through them takes care to slow them down, it's one of those things you forget about until after it's slammed shut behind you. But this slam was different some how. Almost instantly, I could hear Mother's voice, the tone that hovered somewhere between mocking and sneering as she called my name, demanded of whoever was in the narthex to tell her where I was. In my mind's eye, I could see the crazed anger as she stormed into the sanctuary, eyes searching for, and eventually finding, me. The panic set in, the increased blood pressure and the rapid heart rate, the paralyzed-rabbit ...

Mothers. We all have them, we were all delivered into this world by a woman and, many of us, were then raised by the same woman for better or worse. This is the weekend when my feed will be filled with happy photos of friends with their mothers, out to lunch or just spending time together. There will be proclamations of love, proclamations of how wonderful and blessed they were to have been raised by such a woman and the valuable life skills they received. For those whose mothers have passed on, there will maybe be candles posted as they talk about how they miss their mother still. For some of us, Mother's Day is a reminder that we didn't win that particular lottery. We didn't get the wonderful mother who juggled providing for us and giving us opportunities. Our childhoods weren't filled with special moments and memories of our mothers, we aren't left with that pull to spend time with her. I have my own children now and I will spend time with them, just like I...

I love to write. That sentence doesn't even begin to encompass how I feel. I more than love to write. Writing is a beautiful gift that allows me to express myself without having to do any of the things I hate. And that list is fairly long. I have to consciously force myself to make eye contact with anyone. I'm sure it's a bit off putting to others, but I can feel my anxiety creeping up when I force myself to do it, so I don't. And honestly, I don't think it's that I hate  making eye contact, it's probably more of a fear, but admitting that I'm afraid of something so silly sounds...weak. I hate walking up to people and talking. There are people I have known for years that I still struggle to talk to. Again, maybe it's not so much that I hate it, but that I fear the rejection that could happen. And that one extends to any sort of communication- phones, emails, texts. And what is absolutely crazy is- this is only in a social/personal setting! Ok...

I do it to myself, and maybe I think it will work like some sort of perverse exposure therapy, like a person afraid of dogs who slowly exposes themselves in controlled environments until the fear is manageable. I listen to people celebrate the joys of their children, of their grandchildren, and I can see that their joy is sincere and instead of just feeling joy for them, in my mind is an endless loop of 'I don't have that'. There wasn't some parent or grandparent happy for me when I got my college degree and there isn't that person to share when my children reach a milestone. I listen to people fret and worry about the trials their children are facing, could face in the future and I can see the worry is honest and in my mind is that loop. 'I don't have that'. The person whose job it was to be the first to celebrate the highs and the one who was supposed to be there as that rock in the lows didn't want the job. Or. Didn't want the job with...