Conflicted on Mother’s Day

I got a text from my mom this morning. It was a picture of by brother and my SIL making her breakfast. “The tradition continues. Celebrate being a mom today. It is God’s gift to mothers.” Might seem innocuous to some people, but I see the subtext:

Look, I’m a grandmother, in my late 60′s and still requiring to be catered to on Mother’s Day. 

I am not going to tell you that you’re a great mom or mention any of your attributes of being a current mother-in=then-trenches with small children. I’m instead going to sit on a pedestal as if to say “ah, yes welcome to my kingdom of motherhood, where I will always reign superior to you. yes come on in a don’t forget to celebrate, but don’t expect me to celebrate you.”

Trust me, that’s what she’s saying. I’ve seen enough by now. I know. She realizes that I have completely usurped her in personal and emotional growth in the role of mother. Willingly taken on things and let them change me in ways she never will. This prevents her from any humility to acknowledge who I am as a mother.

She will do it publicly. She will be performative on facebook and make her friends think she is humble and selfless and throw out platitudes that she would never genuinely offer me one-on-one. 

No, see mother’s day is for the women in the trenches. She had her time. But still demands her needs be met. Because they never were in the most fundamental ways she needed them to be. Long before I was a thought or even before she met my dad. Her needs are ones that none of us can ever satisfy. Fuel that doesn’t fill. That burns off so quickly and she requires more and more of it. 

I am glad I disentangled myself from that. But I will always mourn the loss. The loss of a relationship with my mother (or realization that it never really existed) filled with warmth and connection and authenticity. Love from someone who had been through hard things and let them change her for the better. I won’t ever get that in my life. And it hurts. The sting has lessened with time. With therapy and prayer and a lot of courage. But it will always hurt.

So today I’m really just proud of myself. Not just for the ways I show up for my husband and children. But for doing it without one of the most crucial support structures to women in my life season: the love and genuine support and friendship of their mother. 

I’m grateful God has sent many women to mother and re-mother me. That I have a mother in law who sees me for who I am. But the onus is still on me. To show up every day. With the courage to fight for what’s right. To not let the past control my present. To let God shape me into the best version of me, despite pain and past wounds. It’s hard, but dammit I’m doing it.