Struggling

Can I just tell you that I'm struggling today? Last night was the Ash Wednesday service at my church and while I really abhor anything about traditional worship, it is my favorite service of the year. (I'm not knocking traditional worship, it's just not for me. I'm more of a free bird) Last year my mom came with me to the service and it was wonderful. I just cried the whole night. I'm so thankful for the people in my church who just came and sat by me and let me cry. You know in losing people, and I've lost many the last 3 years, I've learned something. From my parents, to a guy that was like my brother, and friends it's been interesting to see that when people die we remember the good and we tend to forget the bad. My brother was an amazing person. He was funny, smart, and so unique, but he was also a pain in the ass (which I say with a smile on my face, b/c it was live entertainment to watch it, unless you were the target). I've been pushing down some of the issues with my mom b/c I miss her so much and that outweighs everything. This weekend though, I came face to face with it.

As you know I went to my mom's last weekend and it was so hard.  I found a letter that my mom wrote 13 years ago and emailed to my in-laws. It was 4 pages long in an 8pt font. The letter basically shared every frustration she had with me. My mom and I had reached a good place in prob the last 4 years. Through Elijah House and lots of counseling I had learned to just love her for who she was and put really good boundaries. We had our typically issues but my mom had lived a very hard life and had lots of struggles. She was very wounded and wounded people hurt others. She shared every detail of my house not being clean enough for her, financial problems, her opinion that I was a bad mother and didn't know how to take care of my baby (who was 7 mnths old and cried all the time from colic) and a whole other slew of slanderous things. She talked about the family that I moved in with when I was 15-( I moved in because she kicked me out). They took me in and raised me and there always animosity between them and her. From her because she was jealous of my relationship with them and from them because they were appalled at the things she said and did. I was simply thankful to see how a normal family operated. It was a place where I felt safe and taken care of. But reading her opinions and comment, I am devastated. I feel like I have been shot in the gut and there is nothing to heal it. I have found myself wanting to eat more since this weekend. I'm hurting so bad because there is no resolution to it, and apparantly my solution to the pain is food. While I know that many of her opinions expressed were based on her viewpoint and not truth, it still hurts to know that she thought that in the first place. It hurt that she would share that with people that I love, peope that are my family, behind my back. Woven in the letter were small grains of truth that I know I've grown past, and I know that that's not who I am anymore, but it still hurt to see it, in writing and that my mom would do that.

So I'm processing alot this week and looking for the root and origin of the pain and why I want to eat when I'm hurting. It's an onion peel and I'm peeling back all of it so that I can be who I'm supposed to be. I don't know how to deal with it. Everytime I think about it again I cry and wonder why she would do that. As I pulled into Dahlonega Sunday afternoon I felt my whole body unclench and relax. As I went to dinner on Sunday night with a slew of my friends, some new, some I've had for a while, I had a massive meltdown. Because God has surrounded me with people who love me for me. People who don't care if my house is clean, or my beds made or if my kids say yes maam or yes sir. People who don't care if I'm appropriate or proper or any other expectations. People who are always on my side and have my back. They are amazing, loving, giving people who see the best in me, even when it's not, they choose the best. People who are just exactly what I need because God knows what I've been through. So please pray for me. I'm really struggling this week as I process what I read. And through it all I know that I have friends, who are really family, to help me through.