The Joy and Sadness of Milestones

My sadness speaks for a milestone missed...

Footsteps echo in the memory of what might have been in an abstraction. Remaining is a perpetual possibility only in the world of speculation. What might of been and what has been point to one end. Footsteps echo in the memory down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened. Somehow, we are always at this moment, my daughters and I.

Down the rabbit hole...

Graduations bring nostalgia - a life review. 

My son's dad was the son of an alcoholic and was part of a co-dependant family system. I was a child abuse survivor from my step father and had PTSD. We had lofty idealistic dreams but fought like cats and dogs playing out a dysfunctional dynamic. We were grossly mismatched but I tried things I never would have because of him. In the end we were just not right for each other. I was with A from 1984 to 1994 and had an ugly divorce.

I met D in 1994 and started dating him in early 1995. I was a single mother, one child when we met, not yet divorced but separated for more than a year when we started dating. I was 26 years old, a good job and a home, although I was struggling from the havoc wreaked by a disintegrated relationship. I think about that time period differently now that I'm older. Back then I thought that I was mature and had a lot of life experience. What I had was a lot of experience with trauma and so did D.

In retrospect, I think I was love bombed by D, but I remember making a decision to love him as I drove home from work on one of those early days. It was a conscious decision. I eloped with him on a weekend trip in May 1997. We had two daughters together. After ten years of a bad marriage, I found myself faced with a second divorce. I cried all the way to the lawyer's office. When I told my therapist of my grief, she gave me insight. She said I was grieving for the loss of the dream of what love and marriage should have been, not for the reality of what I had. It took years to get that.

I recognized that feeling again four years ago when I drew boundaries with D to not interfere in my personal life and lost my daughters shortly after. Recently I recognized that D and I are no longer friends and co-parents. I will always love him but it's not good for my health to have contact - him being the gatekeeper to them and the history of lies and manipulations after what I thought was years of mutual respect and my openness in sharing co-parenting during the years I raised them.

Is this review of my history worth it? What does the narrative mean? It's easier not to think about it.

After four years of various stages of grieving for the loss of love and relationship that I wanted with my both my daughters as adults, I have learned to let go and I live in acceptance most of the time, except for milestones.

Banished... 

Last month I watched remotely and sobbed into my husband's arms. I thank god for C every day. I was proud and grief stricken. My dream for her had been fulfilled but I was unable to be there. Now all three of my children are college graduates - a life goal completed. It was a great day and it was a sorrowful day. 

CPTSD from the trauma of that day and the other days of ambiguous complex grief from estrangement I navigate gingerly on the lessening bad days. Fortunately I have the love and support of my husband C, my other children, my family, and friends. I also have the support of other estranged parents.

It isn't one bad thing that kills a person. It's the accumulation of pain and loss. Sometimes I wonder how much one soul can take - deceased mother and estranged daughters in the same year. Most days I am okay because I live in love and peace. My sadness speaks today.

I mothered children under my roof from 1985 through 2017. My happiest years mothering were from 1996 through 2007. I felt so much love and joy during those years with them. The post divorce years were hard.  Young adult daughters are hard. They are all adults now. I still mother my oldest and my step-sons. I miss the other two. I miss my daughters. But I know that I miss who they were before they became cruel. I don't know them now.