I have envy for some people's lives and experiences. I used to be ashamed of this but over time I have come to realize it was just my pains crying out in different ways. I have envy for those who had parents that taught them how to read and write or gave them happy memories not attached to pain and deception.
I have a friend who is going through a struggle with her mother and through listening to both of their stories I found myself judging my friend. Because the issues she faced did not amount to really anything in my mind, which had me coming to a shortfall on empathy. I would have given anything to have my mother care for me and my brothers the way her mother did. She had it all she knew how to read she had homecoming and prom when there was an issue it was taken care of. She had culture and a social life, makeup, etc. With families, there are always going to be hick-ups in the relationships but completely disowning your mother for being human is not really the punishment I would have imagined.
I think I lack empathy for others who struggle with less harmful issues in their life regarding their parents because I envy the love and luxury they had. I also have a hard time understanding why someone would disown their parent for something so trivial. Even now I hold real fear in my heart of my mother and her ability to carelessly do harm to another for her own personal gain. I have some longing to have a mother of my own that I can talk and share my life with. Someone I can look at and know that they love me however, unfortunately, I won't ever be able to do that. I was a tool, if I did not fit her prerogative then I was expendable.
When I think of an act worthy of disowning a parent I think of the time my mother told me she thought about putting a pillow over my face as a baby. When I was crying just to make it all go away she just wanted the sound to stop. She then followed this statement by telling me to jump off our balcony just to Prove to her I was in fact suicidal. She acted like not killing me as a baby was a gift to me worthy of praising her for. Those were truly cruel things to say to your child of 14 years old, to this day I still think she wanted me to do it just to lighten her load, two kids instead of three.
Perhaps through all of the trauma, I have become callused and that is why I lack empathy towards someone holding on to the past despite how small the argument and events were. Maybe it is because I look at the situation wrong thinking how lovely it would have been to have a parent that actually wanted you, that taught you, and gave you opportunities instead of using you. I think for now I am not wise enough to understand or even have the empathy needed to help someone like my friend. I do feel bad for having envy at times and I do wish to have empathy I think for now I just cannot.
I do think parents should have the room for failure our parents are just as much human as we are they make mistakes and sometimes we are caught up in those mistakes. (This is, of course, said with reason in mind crazy life-threatening shit is of course really not cool and bordering psychotic and just plain crazy behavior.) I do think one of the greatest things we can do is sit with our parents and try to learn about those mistakes, who knows we might learn something.
Comments