💌 a love letter: Mother’s Day edition
💌 a love letter: Mother’s Day edition
I have mixed emotions about Mother’s Day, but here’s one for my own
My mom and I have a complicated relationship. Maybe you have one with yours too.
That is to say: I cannot talk about my body without speaking about her. After all, genetics dictates that half my DNA is hers. The ways that I am learning to understand my body stem from careful observation of the ways she cares for (and neglects) herself. I can joke that I won the genetic lottery, but science dictates that intergenerational, systemic and social traumas can be passed down. No wonder why I was doomed through disease.
The first thing I did when I learned I could have endometriosis was call my mother. Out of my immediate family, I am the only one in the flock who no longer lives in the family home. At just shy of eleven hours, the expense and distance have me travelling home less than when I lived in California. Most of our correspondence is done through iMessage because of time zone differences and enjoyment of anachronistic conversations. And for important events or yearning to hear a voice, one of us will ring the other for an impromptu FaceTime call to catch up. On all the FaceTime calls my mother coos and coddles my dogs. She is adamant that they are her grandchildren and she spoils them like her human ones.
But I couldn’t do it for this one. It took me three years since getting my Kyleena in to realise that there was something wrong with my body. It is not normal to throw up to the point of dehydration every menstrual cycle. Common, people say, but not normal. I call my mother because in tracking my own symptoms, I feel the desire to investigate hers. My mother struggled to recall her menstrual days, but we did speak about the way migraines plagued her in my childhood. I don’t remember if it was during menstruation but I always had migraines, she says. I think so, but I always had bad migraines. And heavy periods! The rest of the inquiry proceeds like this until we must part. Over the last five years, I have noticed my mother’s memory and attention span fading fast. Her inability to recollect her bodily symptoms is either a product of trauma or disembodiment. (In all likelihood: probably both.)
My mother is secretive.
Just like someone with Scorpio placements should be. Shrouded behind secrecy and avoidance, my understanding of her is murky at best. I’m not sure what trauma she through, but my own scars are proof that someone in our lineage suffered. The thing about trauma is that its perpetuated not only through our bodies, but emotionally too. Hurt people hurt people. Because we’re all in a trauma response and activated, we all end up flailing our bodies around in a way to release that energy. Instead, we channel that into hurting others.
I feel the hurt in my body every time I’m on my period. I empathise because endometriosis has a genetic link, but she never sought a diagnosis. She had difficulty with pregnancies, from what my parents relay. My brother, the eldest, came first as a geriatric pregnancy. Then there was a traumatic incident happen and my mother lost a bairn gestating in her womb. That didn’t sidetrack my parents from quickly moving on to their next child: me. My brother and I are a year and a half apart and had the other child not passed in the accident, I would not have been alive.
In moments when I am bedridden due to pain, I curse myself for having been born— it wasn’t my choice to be alive! Then I think of my mother’s pain. Enduring dysmenorrhea (the medical term for painful, heavy periods) to the point where, as she describes to me on our call:
I used two heavy or overnight pads and overlapped them. When I had to participate in physical education classes, I wrapped gauze around my underwear to be more comfortable
I laugh because my experience is similar. On my heaviest days, I’m not free-bleeding— I’m changing my menstrual apparatus every few hours. To be honest, with the amount of inflammation that goes on during my period, sometimes I just want to call it a day and buy adult diapers because I don’t want to deal with constant bathroom breaks and pain. So you wore a makeshift diaper? I ask her out of sheer curiosity. She pauses, taking a moment to think about it before making a noise that reads as approval. Yes, you could say that. I can’t blame her for being resourceful. I get that from her.
Resourcing, for diasporic immigrant families, feels like a top priority. My parents moved to America in search of the American Dream, only to find out that raising their children in the West turned them into softer, more delicate and sensitive beings. We weren’t prepared for the harsh realities of life and according to them, grew up with a lack of a work ethic because we had everything handed to us. Isn’t that what they wanted though? They came to the US to resource themselves first, and then pass it on to the succeeding generations. They gave us the resources that we needed to thrive. Both of them were working parents. My parents raised me to believe that we could do anything we wanted to do, as long as we worked hard and believed in ourselves. That, of course, I know now were just platitudes one gives for encouragement— but can be detrimental because of the limitations we have personally and systemically.
Look: My mother isn’t perfect. No human is. But whatever happened in her life ended up hurting me. Relationships of all kinds, even familial, come with a cost: each individual has their desires. Relating to others means flexing your communication skills and emotional intelligence. Things aren’t perfect. One person might bend more than they intended, and it may hurt the other. But in the end, we all tried our best. And that’s what she did: with the best of what she had,(which was a lot) she tried her best. To her benefit, she raised two wonderful adults.
I see it in my brother and the way he raises his child. He’s taken the hardest parts of our childhood and changed them, prioritizing different things than my mother did in her quest. Even though both my parents worked, my mother was the one shuttling us around in her Mercedes Benz. Her lack of time management (she is always late, must be the ADHD, I think now) caused her to swerve and pull some sketchy shit that I can only assume she learned on her time during the east coast that earned the nickname Mommy Manuever in our household because we were sure that it was unsafe, but it is an integral part of how she raised us.
My old therapist tells me that No one leaves childhood unscathed, and of course— she’s correct. The sacrifice one makes when having a child is difficult: you are forced to give up your health to nurture someone else’s. I know there are parts of my mother that sacrificed her hopes and dreams to raise us. I do not forget her sacrifices, and I honour them even though they turned out challenging for me. But as an adult, it’s more complex and nuanced. Our relationship isn’t marred by only terrible events (though, I admit that it’s given me the brunt of my issues) but the nature of our intertwined history and the ways I am contending with my own hurt amplify those things. Conversely, the wisdom my mother shares with me over the years (that I actually listen to) makes me realise that life is too short to stay angry at someone for the wounds that they inflicted. Yes, I now have rationalisation for it, but it doesn’t mean that it didn’t harm me. I’ve just— with the help of my chosen family and loved ones— learned to accept my mother for who she is, empathise with the pain she’s gone through and forgive her anyway. I Because I love her.
I understand not everyone has the privilege to do so with their mothers. Some may not be around anymore. Some never have. Some still hold contention with their mothers on a variety of topics, realising that they will never hold the same values. Whatever your story is, I hope you have compassion and choose to use the day to celebrate yourself, your aliveness and who you’re becoming. And the role your mother may or may not have played is now a part of your story and strength.
For what it’s worth: I’m sending this newsletter to my mom as a love letter to her. She might not like that I’ve exposed some of her history on here, but as I’ve stated: I can’t write about myself without mentioning her.
The more I age, the more I realise that as an adult, I’m learning to reparent myself and also reparenting others. I make it a priority to go out and see her when I can, or at least FaceTime, because I want to make better memories while she’s still around. I know that she and I don’t see eye to eye, but I find that to be a result of her parenting. I may have been born her daughter, but I am an adult. I may still be her child, but I inherited her fierce determination and passion. In our dynamic, we are still the two loudest in the room, trying to talk over each other because that’s the way things are. To outsiders, we seem chaotic and angry. But as my mom says to me over the phone, as I hold it back with an outstretched arm because the way her voice carries: That’s just how I speak.
I can’t talk about my body without talking about my mother, because I come from her body. I used to think that we disagreed on a lot of things, even though I’m part her. Now, I see what I used to deem as the worst part of her, as a strength. Besides the physical ailments, I know that I inherited her ferocity, generosity, and ability to love big and hard. We have different ways of showing this love: for her generation, resourcing and providing gifts and treats are the easiest way to show; for mine: radical community care through education and teaching others how to do it for themselves so they can do it for their communities. And that’s what I’m most proud of: She teaches me (everyday) about how to resource myself so that I can resource my community.
So, hi mom. I may not always like or agree with you, but I will always love you. Even from afar.
Happy Mother’s Day.
Love,
Christa