Today, I am in a state of grief. Perhaps it didn’t help that I went to bed feeling some type of way, and yesterday was just heavy mentally and emotionally anyway. 

Mother’s Day has been weird for me the past few years. I am the mother of three amazing kids, and yet I often feel pushed aside in my role by the other parent. It’s challenging, and I do often find myself retreating more than anything while waving the white flag because I am just too exhausted to argue. What’s the point anyway, and what good would it do to try and defend myself? It’s just not worth it. 

My kids are off doing their own things today, and that’s okay. I was able to sit in the garden this morning with a nice cup of tea while enjoying the sunshine. Well, at least until the grief hit full force. You see, I don’t have a relationship with my own mother. It was my choice, and it was a boundary that I needed to set after being a parentified child for the most of my life up until the fall of 2022. I don’t harbor any blame or bitterness towards her for not being who I had hoped she would be for me growing up, but it also doesn’t mean that it stings any less. 

To add to things, I grew up with a very dominant grandmother. She ruled the roost, and she was very honest, direct and opinionated regarding her views…especially of you. So if she thought you were fat, she wouldn’t have ever hesitated to tell you to your face. Some tried to reconcile this as ‘cultural differences’ since she was an immigrant to the US, but I call bullshit. Why? Because I have called the Netherlands home for over 17 years now, and I have met very few people who would ever dare to say such a thing to me or anyone else I know. It doesn’t mean that there aren’t people here who haven’t said things like this to me though, either. My ex’s parents were well-known to remind me for many years that I should never wear a dress or skirt because of my ‘unattractive legs.’ This taunted me for years until I finally started wearing them in protest as I was learning to love my body for the first time in my entire life. 

All this to say, I haven’t had the most positive experiences with maternal figures in my life. It’s been anything BUT that, with exception to my Grandma Sunshine. She was such a sweet, selfless woman and just a delight. We used to have loads of fun together throughout the years, and there isn’t a day that I do not miss her warmth or her sweet smile. She taught me so much, and I am forever grateful for the incredible impact that she’s had on my life. 

So yeah, now I am sitting here writing this and reflecting upon who I am today, especially in the role of mother.’ I feel like I am always missing the mark because I never learned what it was like to be a mother. I practically had to raise my parents, to some degree my siblings and oftentimes also being the emotional support for others…at the cost of myself. So when I became a mother for the first time 14 years ago, I was exhilarated and also petrified. I didn’t want to mess my kid up or to expose him to any negative experiences I had endured as a child. I didn’t want him to have to pay anything as the result of my childhood trauma and deep-seated wounds. I was scared and ashamed to ask for help, and let’s not mention the fact that the church so often shamed any mention of mental health as if it was a fluke. So what did I do? I attempted to become  ‘Supermom.’ I gave myself for many years for my three children as mother and also to their father as wife because it was all I knew. It was embedded in my brain that I was ‘unholy’ and ‘non-submissive’ if I didn’t adhere to all of the church doctrines on how to be the best wife and mother that I could be. But it made me miserable and depressed for a long time. Coupled together with complex trauma bubbling up to the surface, I got to a point where I just couldn’t hold it all together. 

Eventually, I did seek out professional help. It was with some christian counsellor, and it was a shitty experience to say the least. At the end of our work together for two whole years, he had the audacity to question if our sessions were even of any help to me. He expressed not being totally convinced that I had made any progress in all of that time. I was shocked, saddened and hurt by such claims. I was also relieved because, even though he DID help me on my journey, I didn’t want to subject myself to such a person. Since that experience, I have worked on and off with a number of mental health professionals who have given me tremendous support on my healing journey.

What the heck does any of this have to do with Mother’s Day or grief? Well, I guess because at the end of the day, I still feel alone. I still feel like I am not doing enough as a mother. I am still trying to find the balance of being a great mom and not losing the very essence of who I am at my core in the midst of this journey. I am still learning so much about what healthy parenting entails, and I am grieving the fact that I have no family, friends nearby or really any support as I navigate so much all at once. I am not in a celebrating mood for today. I love and adore my kids, and I am proud to be their mom. However, I also wish I could hit some ‘restart’ button and get a do-over so that they wouldn’t have had to go through tough stuff due the messiness of me healing my wounds, the split between their dad and I, and other factors thrown into the mix. 

I struggle with the pressure of being everything to my kids that my parents never were to me. Because I did that for years, and it literally almost killed me. I entered into such a lowly place thanks to anxiety and depression, getting out of bed often felt like a cruel joke. But I did grit my teeth and put on my smile and pretend that all was well even when it was anything BUT that. So I am sitting today with the discomfort of what it means to be a mom without a mom, to be a mom in the midst of my stuff, how can I show up better for my kids AND also for myself, and a myriad of a million other thoughts swirling through my mind. There is no going around this stuff. There is no linear path either. I express gratitude for the good times with my mother and grandmothers while grieving the terrible moments too, which were many. And that’s okay. 

Perhaps none of my thoughts make sense right now. I am okay with that. It’s basically a random vomit of whatever thrown into words, and I am sitting with this as well. I don’t have to be perfect. I don’t always have to have it all together. I do get to be human in the midst of having various roles such as ‘mom,’ and these may and perhaps do collide sometimes. I am me. I am on this journey of discovering who I am and how to navigate life through the absolutes such as now being a mom alongside the many uncertainties that are staring me in the face. There is beauty in the pain, beauty in the joy, beauty in the grief. Not one is greater or more significant than the other. They all have their rightful place, and I am learning to come to peace with just that.