I *actually never* expected this to happen. in Each Day

Wow… where to start…
I guess because I don’t want to be click-baity and bury the lead, my mom, my sister and I had a genuine conversation where we talked about our history, aired some long held hurts, and I think I said everything I could have wanted to get to that place in our relationship where forgiveness is a possibility. Like, actual forgiveness, where both parties acknowledge their part in the hurts that happened, understand each other, and move forward together with respect.
Jesus… I literally never thought I would see this day.

Unfortunately it comes from other hurts, but let’s start at the start.

Thursday I flew home. My sister and my niece picked me up on their way to mom’s, and then surprised the crap out of mom. It was great. Mom thought that was the extent of her birthday as far as surprises went, so when lots of people showed up to her house this afternoon, she was definitely surprised.
It was a lovely afternoon. We had lots of food, the conversation was great, and aside from a few quiet moments (where the anxious of us wondered if anyone was ever going to speak again), things went really smoothly. I ate a crap ton of samosas and two pieces of cake. Mom was happy to see everyone, and really enjoyed herself. Success!

After everyone was gone, including my sister’s family (but not my sister), and while I was out of the room, my mom must have asked my sister about the conspicuous absence of her own sister, and their aunt (who is kind of like a sister, they’re closer in age than she was to her own sister, mom’s mom). When I came back into the room my sister was explaining how it ended up that they didn’t show. Mom was understandably hurt. We talked about ways to talk about the hurt with her family, which turned into actual literal hours of us talking about our family, our childhood, relationships, colonialism, attachment parenting and on and on… I told her how much I lied as a teen because I never knew if the pieces of myself that I revealed would be praised or punished. I also told her that I understand that she did her best with the tools she had at the time, and that it is unfair to hold people to todays standards for behaviour 25 years ago.

My poor mom. I know how heart broken I was when my friends didn’t show to my party last year… but this is a kicking the dog while it’s down kind of scenario, and I think she’s had enough. I talked about how I don’t know why cutting people off is my go to, but that maybe she needs to consider it. I talked about vulnerability, and how you can only have vulnerability in a relationship built on trust. I talked about the person I was with my ex, and then overcorrecting and becoming a bit of a door mat with M. About how I couldn’t be honest about my needs because of trauma and rejection sensitivity and people pleasing, but as soon as I started being authentic with M, he responded by opening the door to more vulnerability.

I said a lot of things. I don’t remember all of them. I’m sure some of it hurt mom to hear, but I tried to soften that with showing her that I understood how we got to where we were, why she was the way she was, and is, and that I’m so happy that we’re where we are now.

We’re all feeling a little emotionally hungover. I plan on showing my appreciation for the discussion tomorrow morning, making sure mom knows that she’s loved and supported. It couldn’t have been easy to hear some of it, but it’s also important to talk about. If tomorrow there are no unwanted surprises (like if she doubles down on being like her side of the family), then I actually think there is nothing that we can’t discuss.

Jesus… I have never felt this healthy in my entire life…