I Blocked my First Mother on Facebook

Today I blocked my first mother on Facebook. Sounds quite dramatic, doesn't it? A little heartless, possibly a fitting title for a scandalous article in a gossip magazine. It may be considered a sad day when a daughter blocks her mother online, but the truth is, she will probably never know that I blocked her. It is highly unlikely to register as even a tiny blip in the scale of events of her life, and the truth is, she tried to tell me as much many years ago, but I didn't want to listen.

The emotions that rise up within me as I write these words are strong ones, and I feel the tears welling up and awaiting release, but I choose to hold it together for now. You see, I'm a mother too, one who was able to keep all her children, by the grace of God, and I am going to pick up my daughter from school in a little while. I have my two sons sitting in the same room as me right now, and I have a devoted husband who is the father to all three of these wonderful human beings who will arrive later on tonight.

The shame that has nipped at my heels all these years taunts me, as it often does upon a realisation that I have fallen short, but I will not agree with its' condemning tones today. Shame is a liar, and I will not be ashamed today. Today I will speak the truth as I look shame in the eye, and turn my back on it, as I have something I want to say.

All the times I stored my thoughts as if inside a tattered book, as if to say, mother, you are the only one who deserves to hear these words, but the book remained in my possession as she never deigned to give it a second look.
A heart full of love, but frozen back in time, pleading, "Mummy, please look my way!", like a forlorn child who has somehow been overlooked and left behind.

And she, wearing the winter coat of regret, unaddressed heartache and the tangled up mess of unhealed trauma, was never able to give me what I thought I needed. She tried to tell me that too, but I kept on holding out, conserving what I gave to others emotionally as if to save the first pickings for her, this fantasy mother, this all-loving creature who could never live up to my requirements, for what I needed was not a creature but my creator. How could someone as wounded as she heal the wounds that she inflicted? Unwittingly, without malice, but nonetheless, its true. I bent over backwards to see her point of view, to give her time, but all the while putting my one precious life on hold as if no other could ever deserve my love, my attention or my time as much as the one who had clearly said that she didn't want any of these things from me.

Three times my creator has spoken to me the message that has taken me years to process, wrestle with occasionally, and now, finally, accept and act on the truth therein.

Today I blocked my first mother on Facebook, not to protect myself from her, but to protect my future from my repeated compulsion to try to visit a past that has long since had the door closed from my re-entry. It is time to turn around from that door, and walk into my future wholeheartedly, to give myself the my own family joyfully, and to pursue what God has for me by letting go of what He has taken from me.

Acts: 21b,- 22 The Lord gives, and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord!