Mumbo Jumbo

I have never wanted to lead with the fact that my mother died. I know those that do this. But as I have gotten older I realize that it did indeed leave a dark spot in my heart. I realize that so much of what happened during that time, during her illness and after her death really left me with making choices I wonder if I would have if she had lived. No big drastic choices but some of the things that happened certainly left an impact on me and lead me to live my life a certain way now.  The older I got the more I realized this.

I spent most of my teens repeating that I was over it all. I buried it is my guess.

I never spoke about my feelings on this topic to even my dearest and closest friends.

If asked there was always a happy spin. It is what I call my “Peggy Face.”

Besides who wants to hear your problems were always my thoughts. No one cares if you aren’t coping and that you are in pain. Deal with it, smile, it will help you feel better.

In my 30’s, I began to see what I had done. But I had a sister who always blamed everything in her life on our mom dying. I was difficult on myself to prevent this from ever happening. My cousins who were some of my closest friends in my life and even they didn’t know how I was feeling. I wore my Peggy face proudly. Even today I am not sure they know what was going on. I’ve heard a few say, it all worked out so easily for you.  Yep, I did that to myself. 

Honestly why do they need to know otherwise? They don’t, but burying the truth isn’t good for you either.

I remember once in my very early 40’s trying to discuss this with my father. My step mom has always been supportive of this, she gets it. Of course, while dealing with a lot of these things as a teen I never shared them with her. But as an adult I did over wine one Friday evening. I knew she’d understand. My father, not so much. I knew I couldn’t point fingers at him, I knew I could not put blame on him. I knew I had to just tell him what was done and how it hurt me and that was all I could do. But it backfired just as I imagined it would. So I stopped the conversation and just said, “I know you did the best you could.” And then I hugged him.
It was never brought up again.

I don’t know how to put it. I do believe he did the best he knew to do. The problem was for me then that it wasn’t what I needed. So why blame my father? But on the flip side why didn’t my father know better? What is the Maya Angelou saying, “you do better when you know better.”  My father had no role models to be a father. He was from a very different generation when all it meant to be a father was giving us a roof over our head, love and discipline. I had those things so why hurt him with anything else?

In all honesty, I thought I had forgiven him and let it all go.

But I had a class on healing energy. 

This was a class for healing chronic pain that I deal with.

My doctor recommended this as a way to not take pharmaceuticals. Believe it or not one can't live on Percocet or Vicodin. Yes, I like wine. I don’t like pain medication unless you’re giving me a morphine drip. Since that isn’t an option I needed something else. I have done acupuncture and chiropractic care and massages. I have another therapeutic massage coming up. All just short-term relief if any at all..

The woman leading the class told me that it could bring up old emotions and wounds.

All the while listening to her I thought this was all just a bunch of hooey phooey mumbo jumbo. But damn it appears she may be on to something. If it is just a placebo then I’m okay with that if I feel less pain in any given day.

(Good side effect is I am actually feeling better. Not gone but better.)

Since my 2^nd class, I have been thinking about some of the shit I thought was buried.

I am now trying to figure out how to let it go. I just don’t think holding it is healthy either.  We have all had our issues in our life. It’s not issues who make you who you are but the way you deal with them. That had always been what I believed.

So to me when I was saying I was letting them go, I apparently wasn’t. Even as I type this I feel that I did let them go in so many ways. What do I have to do to let them go then? Hell, I have even told you stories here on my blog about some of my experiences. Purge so to speak.

In the end, all this mumbo jumbo has made me take a look back on some things. I don’t know how that will play themselves out. I think I need to just put this back in the box and let it go.