Moving forward is based on the assumption that you let go of the past. Understanding what this means has been one of the most challenging tasks for me. Does this mean that eventually I will be able to forget what happened to me? Does it mean that in order to leave my past behind, I have to slowly dissolve the person that I was? Through this process, I have realized that you can never forget where you have been. Those memories will fade and slowly lose the weight that they once held, but they will never completely vanish. They shouldn't vanish. Good or bad they were the stepping stones that you took into the present. Realizing this, I had to accept that I could never drop these heavy events in my life; I simply had to learn how to lighten my load and rob them of their power.
It is hard for me to believe that I can be someone different than my family. How can i come from a past like that and become someone worthy of a loving and stable environment? Nobody should ever have to go through what I did so, as a precaution, I told myself that I would never get married or have a family. What if I became my father or mother and hurt my own family like they did me? I would rather live alone forever than put my own family through that. I am sure that everybody who has been hurt by their family thinks the same thing before they start their own life. They tell themselves that they will never do what their parents did; they will never be that cruel. Then, before they know what happened or how they got to where they are, they find themselves repeating the same destructive patterns that they had sworn they would never repeat. Moving forward, to me, means accepting that what happened in your past does not have to control who you are in the present. It means looking towards the future with the hope and belief that you will be in control of your actions. Your past will no longer carry enough weight to alter the direction of your future.
My good friend Angela drove with me to Woodland Park on the day that I was saying goodbye to my mom. I couldn't speak in the car. I had no words that could fix or distract me from the situation I was in. A deep sadness pressed down on my heart as I faced the possibility of never seeing my mom again. She was simply moving to Uganda, but in my reality, I was making the decision to not only let go of her physical presence in my life but also her emotional presence. This was going to be my goodbye to having a mother. The mother that she had once represented had left years ago, but this was the first time I was going to look her in the face and admit to myself that I no longer had a mother to turn to for support.
When you see a family member, no matter how your relationship has been with them, you feel a tug on your heart that tells you that they are your tribe. They are supposed to be your safe haven, your rock and your comfort. Whether this is what they really represented for you or not, your heart tells you that this is what you should be receiving from them. My mom was sitting at a little table with a manila folder laying in front of her. I could see the tension run from her watery eyes down through her taught shoulders and rigid back. Her discomfort was a reflection of my own. We hadn't seen each other since our heated separation after Thanksgiving. She was leaving for Uganda with the man that had broken our family apart. She was leaving me and her life in the states to follow a man who had never loved her to Africa. I was losing my mom. There was nothing comforting about this meeting, and although my heart told me that seeing this woman should stimulate love and relief, all I felt was pain and anger.
We sat across from each other inches apart but with oceans of distance between us. She handed me a folder that explained the organization she was going to work for. As she spoke about her excitement to be helping the children of Africa and doing good in the world while finding her purpose in life, my throat closed in tighter and tighter while I wondered why her life here and her family here could never provide her with that fulfillment. I felt no happiness for her; I didn't believe one word she was saying. She wasn't running towards her life's dream; she was running away from the life she had let seep through her fingers here in the states; she was running away from the family she had failed to support. There was nothing I could say to her to explain that I felt as though a jagged knife was slowly ripping my soul from my dying body; how all I wanted was a family that loved me enough to stick around and make a real effort to change.
I tried to stay very stoic not wanting to show her the damage she was causing me. There was part of me that didn't want to give her the satisfaction of watching me cry over her departure. As the tears welled up in my eyes, I saw the relief and light begin to shine in hers.
"Does this make you sad?" She asked looking at me with eyes that searched for proof of my love and my hurt by her leaving. "What's making you sad?" She asked prying out a confession that I needed her and couldn't live without her. A confession that would have satisfied her every need but that never would have changed her decision to leave.
"Nothing, I can't explain it or talk about it right now." I choked out the words trying not to suffocate on my slowly restricting throat.
"Will you come and visit?"
"No mom. I don't think that I will."
She handed me the manila folder that contained the title and service records to my dad's old car that he had given to me after he missed my college graduation, because he had moved to the Congo. We hugged without touching and I walked away from my mother holding a title to a car that represented everything I had received from my family but could never replace the connections we were never able to make.
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