My daughter’s and I have been having a lot of conversations about relationships as of late. Specifically, friendship relationships. The older I get the easier it is to discern who is authentic and who is not. Who competes and who does not. Who is genuinely interested in a deep friendship and who is not. I keep telling them that it doesn’t change as you get older.
For reference, have you ever started out a friendship, maybe someone you met in a social circle, and thought I can see us becoming good friends? But then, you start hanging out more and more and you realize that this person doesn’t always show up as the same person in regard to their interactions with you? One time they are sweet and supportive and the next they are passive aggressive in a derogatory way but play it off like they are joking? You start to notice that it takes a lot of your energy to be around them… and then you realize that it no longer feels like a great investment of your time.
I advise my daughters that, that cycle never ends. Even into adulthood, we may believe that someone feels the same way about us that we feel about them and then one day these patterns start to develop and it doesn’t feel quite right. We have to identify the type of friend they are capable of being and reflect on if we are able to continue to engage in that friendship without expectations. The deepest type of hurt we feel in friendships is having an expectation that the friend is unable to meet, because well “but I would do that for them.”
We have to address who we are so that we can truly see who others are. We can’t expect everyone to be who we’d like for them to be. Some people aren’t going to be able to meet us where we’d like to be met.
In these conversations, we’ve talked about slow stepping relationships a bit more so that we can truly evaluate who someone is before giving them deep information about ourselves. Friendship should be safe. We’ve talked about limiting those who are passive aggressively derogatory in the name of joking. That type of competitive friendship, certainly doesn’t feel safe. We’ve talked about friends who try to set up a narrative about you, that isn’t true but they speak to it like it is. That definitely doesn’t feel safe. In fact, all of those things are signs of deep insecurity and a need to feel superior.
What type of friendships do we want? We want a deep connection with our friends. We want friendships that don’t judge, no matter what the situation is. We don’t want jealous or competitive friendships. We want calm and connected conversations and sisterhood with lots and lots of humor!
One of the things I’ve learned in life is that these friendships are so rare and I let my daughters know that you may only have one or two of these in your life. (Hopefully, you have so many more.) I’ve been lucky enough to have 3 of these in my life. None of these friends live anywhere near me but we talk/text daily and our connections and support for one another are strong. I am forever grateful to them and all that they provide to my life. I am enriched because of their genuine friendship.
I hope that my daughters can find the same type of friendships as they navigate their lives.
I will leave you with this. You know you are with true friends when you are not fighting the energy in the room, your nervous system is calm, and you don’t feel the need to correct them as they try to invalidate you and your lived experiences to everyone in the room. Honor yourself and your truth. Don’t let anyone make you feel less than. We aren’t meant to be besties with everyone… and that’s okay.
Hello friends, one of the biggest life events to occur in our family during my blogging sabbatical, was the loss of my mom.
Between my husband and I, my mom was the first parent that we’ve lost. And it was hard!
There’s a lot I could say about her… A lot I could say about the months, weeks, and days leading up to her passing. And maybe at some point, I’ll write about that more in depth. But for now, I want to write about who she was to me.
I understand we all experience people differently. We perceive each other through the film of our own lived experiences. That is human nature. I’m fully aware that who she was to me is not who she was to everyone and that’s okay.
Where to start? I mean the relationship between her and I could be a chapter book. This is a blog so I do have to condense it a bit.
My childhood was complicated. My parents rarely agreed and from what I witnessed, my mom always succumbed to the will of my dad. For most of my life, I thought she was spineless. I experienced her as a passive person. I actually had a lot of resentment toward her for not standing up for herself and for us.
As it happens, we grow and mature with life experience, and hopefully we all have an awakening moment where we realize that our parents are just humans. It’s their first time living too, and they don’t have it all figured out.
I realized that I’d always compared my parents to people who I thought were ideal parents. The first sign of immaturity on my part. But that’s where I was at developmentally and I allowed my anger and resentment to carry me forward for quite some time.
I felt like I raised them for most of my life. And if we’re being honest, I did have much more responsibility than any child should have. Both of my parents have admitted that is true and my husband can attest.
Then I became a mom, a 19-year-old mom, and my mom showed up for me in so many ways. I recognize her sacrifice as the grandma she wanted to be versus the grandma she had to be in order to assist my brother and I with our children. Retrospectively, I think that this is a big one. I see it now that I’m a grandmother. She watched her grandkids every day after school for hours until we were off work. Now, did she make sure they ate healthy and got all their homework done? No… Did she make sure she pumped them full of sugar and took them to sonic and lived out all of her chaotic grandma dreams? Yes… Yes, she did. And I’m glad she did because even though she had them daily and had more grandparent responsibility because of it, she still found ways to be a grandma that she wanted to be and not the Grandma that was required of her. I really love that for her! And if you ask any of her grandchildren, their after school memories of their grandma are some of their fondest.
Okay, back on track. I’ve always been a bit anxious, struggled in my adolescent and early adult years with OCD, and the list goes on. But unless you knew me closely, you wouldn’t have known all of that. I struggled to connect with my mom through all of my issues because she wasn’t good at having hard conversations. She was good at smiling and pretending like none of it was happening. I used to resent her for that too. I needed her help and she couldn’t give it to me.
Fast forward into adulthood when I started seeking more help for myself. Growing, through endless amounts of therapy and self reflection and self accountability. I started putting together the patterns of my mom’s behavior. I talked a lot with my therapist about the way she always physically showed up even if she couldn’t emotionally connect on a deep level. The more trauma informed I became, the more I recognized my mom’s own trauma responses.
And then one day, I just asked her.. point blank. Connection is hard for you and you get petty or altogether avoidant when you feel backed into a corner or devalued. What happened to you? And then she told me. She told me things that she had never told anyone. A 60-year-old woman who had carried so much trauma. And listening to her talk about it I completely understood why she communicated the way she did, avoided the way that she did, reacted in pettiness the way that she did.. it all made sense. And it made me sad for her.
After our awakening moment with one another, I had a lot more understanding. My resentment fell and my love for her was able to grow. Now, did that take away moments of frustration with one another? Nope. But was I able to recover from those moments and not hold them against her forever or stop talking to her and punish her with isolation, but call it a boundary? Yes, because now I understood her. Please listen when I say that I’m not saying boundaries aren’t appropriate when they’re necessary. But I do feel like people over use them. There’s a quickness to getting offended and not trying to sit down and have a conversation or come to a compromise or even learn about the other person.
When I sat and thought about it… Did my mom say the right things all the time, no. Did she react in ways that were immature, yes? But on the other hand, did she show up when I needed her, yes. And I think she felt comfortable doing that because at the core of it, she knew that I understood her and I loved her and I accepted her.
Going through my own accountability I’ve often wondered how much my kids can hold against me. And even though I feel like it’s far less than what I could hold against my parents, I’m sure they could still find plenty of flaws to be upset about. But is it fair to hold our worst moments against us forever? Would I want my kids to do that to me? Aren’t we all capable of growth and change?
Parenting and grandparenting tends to point out all of those gaps. When you start to realize it can easily be done to you. It’s much easier to analyze and come to a different and more forgiving conclusion.
I’m lucky… I’ve been able to have really hard conversations with both of my parents. And I’m lucky because they’ve been accountable to their flaws. There are parts of them that I deeply love. And there are parts of them that make my eye twitch. But that’s okay. Thats normal. I’m sure that I given them the same symptoms at many points in my life.
I miss my mom terribly. She told me that she would haunt me, but in a good way! Hahaha! She certainly haunts my thoughts. We lived in different states and for the last five years of her life I talked to her about 3 to 5 times a day. She lived alone, even though my dad lives across the street. (they were divorced for 30+ years, but remained good friends). She was a great listener and confidant. No one really understands your motherhood journey, like your mother. I certainly miss having her to talk to in live action. But I continue to talk to her like she’s standing right next to me. It’ll be interesting on the other side someday to see how much she listened to. I’ll have my quiz ready for her!
I’m thankful for our relationship healing and the deep connection that I had always longed for with her. I’m thankful for her always wanting to and being willing to show up. I’m thankful to have watched her own emotional growth in her last decade of life. I’m sad that it took me so long to get there with her. It feels like wasted time now. But I wouldn’t change where we ended up.
Thank you for being my friend mom. I miss you very much. Your smile, laugh, and ornery personality are seared into my thoughts. Your impact runs deep and I hope you hear us every time we speak about you. We love you babe!
Wow… It’s been a few years. I’m not even sure where we left off because I have a ton of drafts that I haven’t published. It is my goal to read back through them and publish those that are ready to be seen.. Thank you to everyone who continues to come back here even after my long gaps in writing.
I mean, what’s happened in the past few years? I’ve been promoted at work, I was a RN through Covid (never again), I’ve gotten all my babies graduated from high school, and even two of them through college.
All in all… Pretty solid work! That statement minimizes every detail of effort that it took to get our family to this point, but it would be 1000 page book to articulate how to run a large family, finish masters degrees, assist aging parents, afford life, eat healthy, exercise, and make a valiant attempt at keeping our own sanity (this will be a lifelong goal). But nonetheless, it is pretty solid work if I do say so.
We have a seven-year-old grandson, who has an endless energy and capacity for human connection. I don’t think I’ve seen anyone quite like him. And I’m not saying that because I’m biased, I honestly cannot recall meeting another human that’s similar to him. I really love that about him.
His mom, our oldest, is the most patient young mom I’ve ever seen. She affords him the space to be his authentic self. Watching her, makes me simultaneously proud and full of shame for the patience I lacked when I was her age. She’s doing an amazing job.
Our oldest son is finishing up his bachelors degree after obtaining two associates degrees. He was the most impacted in his development by Covid and the shutdown. He missed out on two years of interacting with his peers at the end of his high school time and freshman year of college. I hate that for him but he adapted well and hasn’t let anything stop him from obtaining his goals. He’s a deep empath and internal processor. It’s hard to know that something’s bothering him until he’s wearing it on his face, and typically by that point it’s really bad. He’s doing better at sharing his feelings and setting boundaries for himself with others. He is a people pleaser and he’s working on remaining a genuine, authentic person, without letting people walk all over him. It’s a delicate balance.
My stepson has graduated from college and is on the job hunt. I told you all before how much of a budgeter he is so of course he saved his money to give himself six months of no work and decompressing from school. He’s a planner and he’s very good at sticking to his plan!
My middle daughter is in college with two internships, on the dance team, and works two jobs. Her work ethic is unmatched. But her propensity to say yes to everything and then want to excel at it, is unrealistic. We’ve had some honest conversations about being able to say no, and not having to be the best at every single thing. Her brain is busy and she has a drive to feel productive, so we’ve been working on a realistic and healthy balance.
My youngest, who has Williams syndrome, well it’s her world and we’re all just living in it! Nothing has changed there. But we found a community of special needs families where we live which makes me feel that this is where we were meant to be. The things our daughter has access to are unmatched and would rival special needs communities in many areas of our nation, I’m sure. I’m always grateful for our special needs family and friends.
I’m not sure if I wrote about it before, but my best friend, Emma, passed away in 2017. She was a dog we rescued, but she was basically a human. You had to know her to understand. Shadow, our Akita, lived to be 13 years old. She died a fulfilled old lady.
We have two other dogs now, our three year-old mini Aussie doodle name named Roxie and our seven-year-old mini Aussie named Willie Two Moons. They keep us on our toes.
This is an extremely general update and lacks all the messy details that occurred in order to get our family to this point. However, those are separate stories for a different time. They will make their appearance when they’re supposed to.
In the meantime, it was good catching up. I’m going to be trying to write at least once a week going forward. It’s cathartic for me, in the most self-serving way, but if my random thoughts help anyone else feel less alone or more validated in their own life, then it was worth me sharing.
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