Last night, I was honored to be part of an amazing group of storytellers and listeners who came out to hold space for one another at Hub & Spoke for the inaugural event of the We Rise Storytelling Collective. Over 60 people showed up for the event, some to share their stories, some to listen, and all to connect with others in our community. As diverse as the stories were, we found connection and empathy for one another. We laughed, we cried, and we shared our vulnerability in more ways than one.
The world needs more opportunities for this.
Here’s the story I shared last night, for those of you who couldn’t make it:
Divorced. Tattooed. Lesbian. Daughter. These are the words my mother used to describe me the last time I visited her, as in “I never thought this is where my life would end up.” Because my divorce, my tattoo, my sexuality–are somehow things that have impacted her life, even though they were choices I made. She practically spat the word daughter at me, as if being her daughter implied the reason for her disgust rather than a commitment to be supportive.
My mother has always loved everyone in her life so fiercely that she has driven them away. And because I either loved or feared my mother too much to be authentic around her (although at the time, I didn’t know that authenticity would require a divorce, a tattoo, and a girlfriend), I thought the only way to preserve our relationship was to create physical distance. I had hoped that putting 865 miles between us would compensate for our lack of emotional boundaries. What I hadn’t anticipated was my mother tightening her grip on me psychologically because of the distance between us. In retrospect, this was naïve.
The thing is, my mother fancies herself a “fixer”: she believes she knows best how people should run their lives, and to be fair, she’s got plenty of experience and wisdom to offer. So when my marriage went south, she blamed me first for living too far east and herself second for not being able to compensate for that distance. Not one to admit defeat, however, my mother staunchly believes that if everyone would just take her advice, everyone would be happier. So when I got divorced, she jumped at the opportunity to “set me straight”: this time, she would get it right.
For the first time in my life, I had to ask for help. Not wanting to displace my kids from the only home they knew, I swallowed my pride and asked my parents if they would be willing to provide the financial assistance I needed to afford the mortgage. For the first time in her life, my mother finally felt like she could be useful to me. As soon as my anxiety and fears for my financial future had abated, she cast her line: “I want to share our expectations with you,” she said during her first visit after the divorce was finalized. Instantly, my stomach dropped. “We don’t like being so wrapped up in your life,” she told me. “We’re making a lot of sacrifices in order to help you,” she said. “We hope you’ll understand that we expect you to make some sacrifices as well.”
Here it comes, I thought. Although I’d always known, subconsciously, that anything my mother did for us came with strings attached, those strings had always been invisible. As strong as fishing line, but difficult to see and easy to get tangled in. And so, here I was, hooked, and wriggling on the line, trying to figure out a way to escape but not knowing if I would survive if she threw me back. And because she is the one with the bait–in the form of a checkbook–I begin to suffocate when she tells me, “As long as we are supporting you, we expect you to refrain from dating anyone.”
When she said that, I instantly turned 16 again, an angry teenager punching the proverbial wall between her expectations and my desires. I was 22 and questioning my decision to pursue a Master’s degree in English Literature, leaving my best friend and boyfriend, both who had made plans to move from Chicago to Boston with me, in the lurch when I made a last-minute decision not to go to Boston College because my mother didn’t think it was a good idea and I didn’t want to challenge her and fail. I was 32 and pregnant for the second time, this time with a child I was eagerly awaiting, reeling at her suggestion that having a baby might not be the best decision for my life and unable to tell her I’d already made that decision one time too many before. But I wasn’t 16, or 22, or 32: I was 41 years old. I was a successful teacher, educational consultant, and writer. I was a mother of two beautiful, well-adjusted children and I owned a comfortable home in an upper-middle class town. I had made a good life for myself 865 miles away from my family, and yet here I was, being told once again that what I wanted, what I had achieved, wasn’t good enough. No matter what else I was, in her eyes, the most important–and devastating–things about me were that I was divorced, tattooed, and a lesbian.
It was at that moment that I realized nothing would ever be good enough for my mother. I could have been a lawyer, or a CEO of a Fortune 500 company, or a best-selling novelist, and still my mother would find fault with what I had done. So, what could I do? I did the only thing I knew how to do: I spent the rest of that summer figuring out how to cut the strings she was so intent on strangling me with. I reached out to my network of colleagues and peers, I accepted a second, then a third job, I paid off the debt I was left with after the divorce, and I continued to date the beautiful, intelligent, and fiercely independent woman I’d met earlier that year.
My parents had expected I would need a year, maybe more to figure out how to sink or swim. Less than four months later, I called my mother to thank her for everything she’d done. “I know things have been a bit strained between us,” I continued, “since our conversation about how you didn’t think I should be dating anyone. I know you meant well when you said that, but I blew up at you because I had already met someone and I was afraid you wouldn’t help if you knew.” Surprisingly, she didn’t say anything right away. She wasn’t yelling at me, or criticizing my choices. She wasn’t lambasting me for taking advantage of her generosity or ignoring her wishes. “I’m happy you met someone,” she said. I took a deep breath, paused, and then said, “There’s more.” “Jesus Christ,” she sighed. In one breath, I told her not only had I met someone, but the children had met her and were well aware that not only was she my girlfriend, but that she was expecting a baby.
I waited, the silence crackling on the line. My mother was speechless. I had finally shut her up. She had no advice, no opinion, no commentary. “Well,” I said. “I know this is a lot for you to process. I guess I should let you go do that.”
“I don’t know how to process this,” she said. I could hear the panic in her voice. But it was no longer my job to help her process this. She had been unable to process me my entire life, and I was finally ok with it. I didn’t need her to understand, or approve. I didn’t need her to tell me whether I was making the right choice or not. I was divorced, tattooed, and in love with another woman. It didn’t matter if she thought I was a lesbian, or an idiot, or selfish, or a nightmare she had to endure. This was my life, not hers, and I was ready to start living it rather than being suffocated by it.
(mostly) full disclosure 