Another Mother's Day come and gone.
I keep trying to approach the day realistically and without expectation but I failed; no surprise really but I'm trying to take my failure in stride. As a friend of mine once said, "...well that seems to be true of so many other things in your life, it's just never enough"... Oddly she wasn't being mean but rather speaking ironically. Though her words didn't hurt me, since they were so radically true, they have never left me and I think about them often.
And this Mother's Day may be a case in point. Part of my day was genuinely, perfect. Briefly, I felt spoiled and treated with exception. But I was also dissapointed and let down by specific people...And a small bitter part of me felt embarrassed even by those same people.
My children are the very heartbeat of my soul. Daily I am brought up breathless with love for them. They are also all (with the exception of the baby) old enough now to be responsible for navigating the holiday on their own. And they didn't. No card, no handmade token, nothing. Not. A. Thing. It happened on my birthday in December as well. I raised ungrateful thoughtless children apparently. Sad...
I am working thru those feelings now, and allowing myself to feel the bad feelings while still embracing all the goodness that Mother's Day held as well. I don't want to devalue the joys of yesterday, the delicious bits of love that came my way so generously, so I am trying to let the hurt be there in the shadow instead of the forefront. I can't NOT feel sad or hurt, but I CAN choose to let the happy feelings be the ones I dwell on and remember.
My children are bright and talented and creative and so funny, they are incredible gifts and I wouldn't trade them for a token card of acknowledgement, so I want to be grateful, and I want to embrace the concept of "enough". My day, such as it was, was enough.
