Claiming My Self

I wrote a post about my mom 5 years ago. I don’t believe one single event is a catalyst, more like a confluence of perfectly timed small moments that lead up to pivotal moments. However, that post was a piece of an energetic contract that would take me on a journey I never could have imagined for myself.

The post about my mom came through me. I had been in bed, attempting to sleep, but lines of story kept running through my head. It was my first [known] experience of ‘catching’ a creative moment. It wasn’t exciting, it was frustrating. The words were banging inside my head, looping and looping and looping, until finally I sat up at 1am and started to write them down. I remember the feeling of relief as they found there way from inside my head onto the once blank word doc. It was effortless. I proofread it once or twice but didn’t linger as I tend to do, namely because I recognized that I would lose the nerve if I waited. So, I hit publish and got a rush of adrenaline at the mere thought that this was no longer my private story. That I had just volunteered myself to be seen. A true act of vulnerability that was leaps and bounds out of my comfort zone. It was the perfect blend of fucking terrifying and exciting.

Since that night I have done SO MUCH WORK. I entered the labyrinth of an ‘accelerated’ growth period where most days felt like I was living the Tower card. I had no idea I would be in a phase of crumbling for half a decade. Thank goodness for that, some things are better left unknown.

As I’ve made my way through the twists and turns of the journey of healing complex developmental trauma to uncover the truth of who I am, I’ve found myself coming out of the labyrinth only to be met with how I entered. These last 5 years have been multifaceted as I’ve peeled away layers and layers of bullshit, released stored traumatic events from my cells, and built a foundation of safety that no one can ever take away from me because it’s rooted in something bigger and more powerful than this mortal and fleeting existence. And yet, here I am, back at mom.

I re-read the post a few months back and laughed at the ways in which the story could desperately use edits from a stylistic and grammatical perspective. You know, ways to make the flow more consistent or ‘proper.’ Tweaks that could enrich the literary potency. Yet I decided not to make those tweaks. I decided that this was the way it came through me, and this is how I would leave it. Some things are more profound in the ways they don’t deliver, in the inadequacies. Kind of like my relationship with my mother.

Since then I’ve been able to sense an evasive thread unassumingly wrapped around my sacral center. During a psilocybin journey I watched as she floated away in a triangle shaped bubble with the message ‘you have to let her go’ repeating over and over and over again. I cried a cry I’ve never experienced in ordinary reality. It was a cry from my cells, my tissues, my organs. The parts of me that share parts of her. The parts of me that were carried by her, brought into the world by her, and yet never taken care of by her. Even as the medicine showed me the truth of what I already knew on some subconscious level, I could feel the resistance. I didn’t want to let her go.

That was 3 years ago. Once back in the ordinary world, I took the message to heart and cognitively made attempts to let her go. I wrote a letter to her on a new moon and burned it on a full moon. I asked my shamanic practitioner clan to journey on my behalf to bring me back any insights of how I could do it, how I could let her go. I asked a channel to bring her through so I could know that I wasn’t abandoning her, that she didn’t need me, although she liked to use me. I got confirmation from the channeler (who didn’t know my intention) through a message that ultimately said she understood.

With as much external validation as I was ever going to get, I took a tangible action. I blocked her number and deleted voicemails without ever listening to them, removing her from my field entirely. That helped in my conscious realm. I really wanted to believe I had done it, but underneath it all, there was still a tether.

She started popping up in my dreams here and there over the last year or two. In them she would always look so healthy, like a version of her I never really knew but liked to imagine. She never spoke in the dreams - she handed me a letter once, but I never read what it said. I didn’t really know what to make of it all, until the dream I had more recently.

She showed up at the foot of my bed with laundry bags of clothing and a huge smile on her face. I felt a wave of panic and fear run through me. How did she get in? No one else was there, I was alone. A flash of not being safe ran through me as I pulled the covers up to block her from my sight. By the time I moved the covers back down she was sitting on the bed across from me, sad and dejected. The energy of the dream shifted in that moment. I was no longer scared or panicked, but I knew what I had to do. I got up and sat down next to her and took in her face. Her side profile revealed young, healthy looking skin. Her hair was shoulder length and a chestnut brown. Tears strolled down her face, but she didn’t say a word. I knew that if she opened her mouth I would see the missing teeth, the rotting gums, and I would know the truth that this was an illusion, a version of her that didn’t exist, and I didn’t want to see that. I told her gently but firmly that she couldn’t stay. “You can’t stay here.” Tears cascaded down her cheeks. She didn’t crumble, but she was hurt. “You can’t stay here” I repeated, feeling the depths of her sorrow and the root of my strength. That moment felt like an eternity. I eventually got off the bed and told her we’d find her a hotel, a place to stay. I was confident and assured. I landed on a place that had a private room with her own bathroom, because I didn’t want her having a shared space and scaring anyone. Eventually we got to where she’d be staying. The place was fine, although the bed was a metal cot and the overall room felt a bit depressing (side note: IRL I had been getting missed calls from a jail she was at for a week or so prior to this dream).

Since that dream I’ve been unraveling the elusive thread always just out of reach, deep in the depths of my cellular story. An invisible umbilicus feeding me confusion, fear, and pain that I’ve clung to because she’s my mom. Finger by finger I’ve felt myself letting go from the inside, a process that is equally as challenging as staying connected, but offers something that holding on doesn’t; my freedom.

I haven’t spoken about my mom much to anyone in my relatively new community. When I did for the first time recently, I realized that I still worry about how I’m perceived, but now it’s for making the choice to let her go. Like some part of me is holding on for dear life to the possibility that I don’t have to go through this, I can keep her. I’ve found myself questioning my decision to not answer her calls anymore, to blocking her number, to not trying to help her. I suddenly want to ask people what they think I should do, what choice they would make, how they would cope with the consequences of their decision.

And so, I’m writing THIS post. A post that reminds me that I know what’s right for me. That I know how much I love my mom, and I don’t have to prove that to anyone who thinks I should do it differently. That I know how essential it is to my healing, to my stepping into the person I came here to be, to let her go.

I can let her go and love her. I can be free and live, because I know that in my choice to live fully, she is so fucking proud - even if she’ll never tell me that.

My first post was about claiming my story. This post is about claiming my Self.

xx,

Kerrie

p.s. this post was NOT easy to write. It didn’t flow effortlessly, but instead required I sit here and stay committed, that I hold myself in compassion as I claim my choice, my consequences, my life.

p.p.s. with the reality of the instability of the world we find ourselves in - with only more confusion to come I’m sure - I believe the more we can find our center, our ground, the more prepared we’ll be. Sometimes the world changing work we can do is the work we do with ourselves. I would love to take a stand and use my real estate to support those under attack and persecution, but this is all I’ve got currently. On that note, I love this post by Berries and Brambles talking about something real and relevant. If you have the capacity, give it a read.