Yesterday I was on my way to work and listening to Klove when they asked, “What is one word you would use to describe your life right now?”
Immediately the word “happy” entered my mind.
Happy is scary for me.
Happy is a place of vulnerability.
Happy often turns to sad.
Happy gives me anxiety.
For years I didn’t let happy in.
I settled in a place of satisfaction with my life and dedication to my family. I vowed to break the cycles of abuse in my family and be a better mother and wife. But, I didn’t allow happy in.
Many people in my younger life were a source of instability, either because of my mother’s actions, who lived with bipolar disease, or distance as we or they moved. Due to my mother’s instability, my father’s illness, and intense poverty, I was pushed out of my home at 18. This led to marriage at 18, the birth of my first child at 19, and divorce after intense domestic violence. Additionally, like many, I am a survivor of sexual assault as a child and as an adult.
If you don’t expect happy then you can’t be disappointed by sad
At age 24, my father-in-law passed away suddenly. This thrust me into the world of a mother-in-law who, as of 31 years of marriage, refuses to have a relationship with her first daughter-in-law (me), instead maintaining a grudging distance. *For Christmas one year, she gave me a scrub brush. It was a nice scrub brush, but… That is a story for another time* This left me feeling uncomfortable and unwelcome, often alone. I knew my husband deserved a relationship with his mother and siblings, and our children deserved a relationship with their grandmother, aunt, and uncles. This led to years of emotional distress as I tried to fit in and “earn” her love. Then at age 27, my father passed away after years of struggle with juvenile diabetes, blindness, and 6 years of hemodialysis. My dysfunctional relationship with my mother became unsustainable within a few weeks after his death. Eventually, I realized that my dad was the glue holding my relationship with my mother. Without that buffer, our relationship was all toxic and had no benefit.
A child living with abuse, trauma, or a parent with a chronic illness, mental illness, or addiction normalizes their experience.
I read the paragraphs above, and my nurse brain sees why someone experiencing those life events might push happy away. However, I also understand that I lived as if everyone’s life was like mine for much of my youth, which was as good as it would be. That is what children do. I was blessed that along this path, I had helpers: grandparents who did their best to love my sister and me, an aunt who loved me and attempted to protect me the best she could, and an ‘adopted’ mom and family (I briefly dated her son) who offered me kindness, gentleness and showed me the love of God through her actions. I met, married, and grew up with an amazing man by my side who has worked hard to be patient with my baggage.
Happy. That emotion I thought I had given up on has finally found me, and it only took me 51 years to let it in. Why now?
I’m sure there are some happy memories stored under the pain, but I have to dig through the pain to find them.
Recently, my daughter asked me to tell her happy memories from my childhood, and we quickly realized that I don’t have many, or, more correctly, I don’t have access to many from my childhood. I can access stories of hardship, poverty, emotional pain, and a lack of happiness. I can also find memories of my dad that I am fond of, and they make me smile, and I tell them to help my children know him. I find memories with feelings of safety when my sister and I spent time with my grandparents and aunt. Honestly, I have a more challenging time finding memories of my mother that elicit feelings I want to share with others. That is hard for my child’s heart to understand; however, I know that nothing I did caused that pain, and it is NOT mine to hold on to. So, I let that be.
Breaking the cycle means letting the bad be. Laying the sad aside. Allowing myself the grace to know that nothing I did as a child caused the poverty, trauma, emotional and physical pain, loneliness, and feelings of not belonging. Seeing the heartache without owning it. Learning not to carry it with me. Learning to look at the pain without allowing it back into my life. To break the cycle, I had to learn to unload the pain I carried in my baggage to make room for happy.
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