UnHappy Mothers Day

“Get Over it Already.”

This phrase echoed through my childhood. Anytime I was sad, disrespected, or grieving I was reminded to leave it behind.

Get over it. No use crying over spilled milk. The glass is now empty. 

But I was nine, and life had just started. This moment could have been different. 

I stopped sniffling as footsteps creaked on the wooden stairs. I knew who it was. There was only one set now. My mom sat on my bed, her silhouette purple and sharp framed against the soft yellow light pouring through the open doorway. She placed her hand on my leg. 

“Honey, it’s been a month [since your dad and I got divorced]. It’s time to stop crying. Get over it already.”

I blinked in disbelief. This was the moment I saw a different side of her.

My mom was fun, high energy, and loved throwing parties. The person delivering this line was cold, stoic, and unfeeling. I realized I was getting the best of her because my dad served as her emotional regulator. His constant weekend-long migraines suddenly had a cause; their muffled arguments became too loud to ignore in the end. 

You can’t get over spilled milk until you clean it up.

Accountability is too painful for narcissistic parents, so they project outward to avoid responsibility for their actions. This is a temporary solution, of course. Spilled milk reeks of regret.

People talk about their pain as a way to defuse its power. We openly discuss what is far behind us. 

I can’t put milk back in the glass, but I can clean it up.

I can pour one out for all the times she dumped her fears onto me like a cold, cruel shower. 

And I can pour another glass for myself. I can toast how far I’ve come. Cheers.

“You’re Bad at Relationships.”

I was twenty, barely in my first relationship, and just scored a nearly unpaid design internship in Pittsburgh. I’d be living with my dad for the duration of the summer, longer than two weeks for the first time in a decade. I was delighted. A job and an adventure.

My mom decided right then that I wasn't quitting her, she was firing me.

I was clearly too excited about the prospect of leaving and had to be punished. She pulled her sunglasses over her eyes as she spoke, even taking on the tone of Miranda Priestly à la The Devil Wears Prada.

“Don’t bother coming back.” 

“I’m sorry, what? Like ever?”

“Yes, that’s right. You’re bad at relationships.”

What a strange thought, that one could bad at relationships in the first place. Who taught you that was an option?

Toxic parents try to hand off their pain as it was handed down to them. Sacred, poisonous heirlooms we did not demand but are obligated to heal. Many wounds heal in solitude, but those made in relationship require exposure to overcome them.

Relationships have always been flowers to me. Tentative openings cycle to sudden closures with many external factors weighing on their success. Some require constant tending, others are perennial, all are treated with respect.

It became impossible to tend our relationship. I severed contact in August 2020 having done all I could. I laid my flowers at the feet of my desires. I didn’t leave empty handed. I scatter compassion everywhere.

I am the best of my mother, her utmost qualities refined and coaxed from scorched earth. A lotus stretching towards the sun.

“I will Destroy You.”

I didn’t meant to discover the affair.

Perhaps I could have continued in ignorance, but life had other plans.

My mother loved sugar. Sweetness was a flavor rather than a sensation and found its way into everything: tea, cakes, and the many cookies baked at every holiday. Sugar, butter, some salt as the elemental base the women handed through our ancestral line. Sweetness to coat the hard times.

Sweetness was polite. I was raised to avoid swearing and was genuinely terrifying of cosmic damnation that accompanied cursing. Bitter words were unwelcome up and until one conversation.

Adult relationships are complicated, but to a child they were a misunderstanding. Surely if I asked things would be easy. Clear. Nobody would willingly hurt other people.

I will never forget her large eyes bulging in anger and the rupture in our timeline. There is only before and after she growled like a wounded animal,

“If you tell anybody, I will DESTROY YOU. Never forget that.”

I was almost ten. This was how the cookie crumbled.

As a teen I was told I was gentle but possessed an unexplained edge. Tartness on the end of every compliment. Like sugar I absorbed the acrid fumes of childhood and carried the necrotic aftertaste with me.

Everything would have to melt away. It would start and end with me.

As an adult, I was drawn to the medicinal, inspiring qualities of words. Our realities form on our lips. Perhaps I am compelled to chase what I never had: healing words spoken over me. I had discovered every shape and color of degradation, so few that illuminated my vibrancy. I choose to see people where they are and highlight their beauty.

My words are sweet, but they are also true.

“You Reflect Poorly on Me”

Children are not reflections as much as they are mirrors.

Despite being a polite and bookish kid with tons of hobbies, this phrase found me on many occasions. No amount of time spent in church or leading National Honor’s Society events spared me this cutting remark.

My best efforts would never be enough.

Narcissists project their self-hatred outward because their bottomless loathing is too much to bear. Memories merge with the present, a twisted house of mirrors distorted by time. The labyrinth of deceit and secrecy keeps everyone out and ultimately leaves them alone at the center.

A friend said adults reach back through fuzzy memories, occasionally bleeding on sharp edges. If we’re willing to dig, the picture becomes clearer: we can choose who we want to be.

I took a hammer to an already-broken mirror tucked in a forgotten corner of the basement. Fate shapes each shard that shatters under the sheet, their exact use unknown. While I cannot control the breakage, I am charged with making meaning of the pieces.

The hammer’s violence gives way to miracles.

I am her strongest genes that mutated to breathe a little freer. I reflect what she could not become. Softer edges on harsh corners. Stained glass catching warm light and throws it around the room. A disco ball. I will not mirror the ugliness passed to me. Instead I choose the stars.

A poor reflection, you cry.

Indeed.

I am the prismatic sky.