Cutting Some Slack

OK, I'm one of those weirdos who happens to think stuff like that messages and things come to us in different forms and signs. I don't always think it is The Divine directly communicating but a combination of what I like to call The Powers That Be. Think of the yin/yang symbol, the collective unconscious, the good, the bad, the beautiful and ugly, and to me that is a snapshot of The Powers That Be (sometimes called the PTB).

Well, I got to thinking about what I've written lately and what has popped up randomly for me. It was a bit of a message to me from that "Lori needs" meme that I should cut my mom some slack. After all, I said I expect people to give me some slack when I'm in the hospital or coming home from it, and I figure if I want to receive something I'd better be willing to give it first.

I'm not making excuses for my mother, but rather thought of the explanation of why she eschews being truthful and honest, although I did learn from her the phrase "honest is the best policy."

It jumped into my memories how she told of an incident involving her finding the courage to confess to her father that she was wearing a bit of lip gloss or lip stick to school and then taking it off before coming home. (Her father was a religious fundamentalist who felt beating his children into submission was God's will. He would not allow my mom to enjoy the typical, normal things of a teenager in the 1950s because they were sinful and such.)

I commend her for being honest with her father. She knew she was going against his wishes, but what he did to her because of her honesty was appalling, completely against the entire religion of Christianity (as far as I'm concerned) and no doubt left an impact on my mother to form the opinion that being honest gets you nothing more than a beating within the inch of your life.

My mother is prone to exaggeration, but I don't think she was entirely off in saying that her father reacted violently. The physical abuse he inflicted on her was more than enough to have him arrested, and she said that she managed to escape with him chasing after her with a rake!

I tend to think this punishment for being honest was a common experience for her. I struggle to feel empathy for her because I perceive her as an aware, strong woman whom I feel has realized: "The way you were raised is your parents' fault. If you stay that way, it's your own." (I haven't any idea who I'm quoting here, so I would give credit where it is due if I knew.)

Right here is where I'd disgress on a tangent of how un-Christian her father was about punishing honesty. I suppose in his mind he was punishing her for breaking a rule, but there are far more effective ways to reprimand for breaking a rule than physical assault. (It's from his gene pool that I figure I get my ulcerative colitis from. Yeah, I'm not too keen on that side of the family tree.)

So my feelings toward my mom haven't been as slacky as I could have them. Lately she and I have been annoying each other and I think it began on the day I was born started most recently this summer when I had surgery. I don't know why my choice to free myself of pain nettled her so much, but it surfaced for her a lot of crap and she repeated much of the same stuff she said to me when I was 16-17 yo and in the hospital. But it's been building ever since I said I was going to be contacting my "other family members."

She doesn't call me very often, and she made a deliberate point one day to call and ask me if I had contacted "anyone" and she was sure to tell me that my dad would never be able to share his feelings.

It's a slow lesson for me to learn: my mother. How to relate to her. How to cope with her ways. Just how much she has influenced my decisions and who I am. Edgar Cayce's definition of a soul mate comes to mind. In my life she's been (to date) the one who has provoked me the most to meet myself. She's like a having a head-on collision without an air bag!