Slogging Through

Slogging through life seems a good title for where mine has been lately. The photo, taken by my hiking companion on her camera, is of me slogging my way through the krummholz in a high meadow on last Friday's hike. A friend reading one of my last blogs dubbed me a "wrestlin' woman."

Wrestlin' and slogging both sound like challenging ways to make it through life. However, getting to the feelings of my early childhood seems to require wrestlin' and slogging.

The gold in this part of the journey has been unexpected. I did not consider that I might understand not only the decisions I made as a child, but which of my basic needs (as a child) motivated those decisions. Little Margaret, who met her Daddy's inappropriate needs as best she could, did it to gain affection--a natural and basic child's need. This realization allowed me to finally clear my guilt about heeding Daddy's requests and doing the best I could with them.

I had felt responsible for Mother's emotions and wanted to make her feel better. As a child, I believed I had that power--if only I did the right thing. I found myself acting that out in a friendship--surprised that this part of me hadn't healed. And naturally I had engendered hurt and resentment in myself and my friend. With Mother if I made her happy, if I helped her be well, surely I'd get the love and affection I desired and needed.

I had experienced Mother's jealousy during childhood. That jealousy erupted with venom over the years at me, then at my daughter, and even a friend's daughter as each entered puberty. I never believed I would understand what triggered those emotions. A recent experience reminded me that sisters (I don't have one) are sometimes jealous of each other. Then a light bulb went on. Mother was jealousy of her sister--four years older. We saw that jealousy, not that she could admit it, but this must have been especially strong when her sister entered puberty. We must have triggered those emotions as we reached that period of our lives. When it happened to me, I thought it was about me, but by the time it happened to my friend's daughter, it was clear that it wasn't about any of us. I'm aware that when I feel stronger emotions than make sense, it's about something old. I realized that was true with Mother, but only now can I see the probable cause.

Helping that little girl part of me deeply know that she couldn't heal Mother is a huge relief. I can finally forgive myself for not making Mother well.

All this slogging and wrestlin' counts. Hopefully, I'll put these and other insights together in a way that will help others. If I do, it will be their understandings of their feelings, with the Spirit's help, that will heal. My work could only jog those realizations.

In peace.