For as long as I can recall,
our relationship has been one of control and contrast.
When I do as you like, you are there to take care of me when I am ill, give me advice when I am lost, and comfort me when I'm lonely.
You help me to solve problems that my brain cannot grasp.
This always has to be on your terms. Until now I've followed the unspoken rules.
"Your way or the highway", as they say.
I am now on the highway, since I've veered off the path of what is acceptable to you, driving fast and taking chances.
And you hit me where it hurts the most, you're definitely an expert at it.
Just writing these words has started a war that I cannot win.
I do not believe in wars, or battles, or fights over control.
All of the love, caring, and support you gave me was withdrawn before I could grasp what had occurred. Like a slap in the face I realize that you have already executed your carefully planned attack to make me suffer for my perceived insolence.
I cannot play by your rules anymore, and the relationship we had is slipping away faster than the seconds can tick on the annoyingly loud clock in your kitchen.
It hurts, just as you intended, I feel the abandonment and loss.
Maybe it's for the best.
Trying to live by someone else's unbendable rules just to be allowed in their life is exhausting.
I am extremely exhausted.
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3 comments:
This is your aunt. Your poetry moves me deeply, and I feel your hurt and have witnessed your hurt. I know this part of my sister, have witnessed her do intentional hurtful actions to innocent animals and have felt the knife slide deep into my heart when she has hurt me many times over the years. I have always prayed that you would not witness this side of her, praying this twist in her personality did not leak onto her children.
I now know it did leak onto you and your brother. Maybe leak is too faint a word. Vent should be used as it is you that has lived constantly with her through your life, enduring the confusion, learning different meanings of what love meant. I see you as a strong young woman experiencing the pain and horror of your childhood into your teenage years into a woman and witness your strength in enduring and looking for the good out of every experience. I see you turning toward the light and finding hope in all the darkness you have experienced. You are growing into your wisdom already present and maybe even have met your wise self these past weeks and allowed her to share with you words of comfort. You're reading books filled with wisdom from many masters. You have a feminine engine within that keeps hope and motivation there to continue to look for the calm sunset and the bursting sunrise to be defined just as you need them; quiet, beautiful, full of love and support.
I want you to know I am very proud of you and your ability to face the incredible pain you have experienced and still experiencing. Whether you know it or not, your strength within helps me face fully the painful facts of my sister's mental health. I can't turn my head away anymore and pretend. You stand as a pillar of strength holding signs of all the hurt you have felt, lessons you've learned and pending lessons while you sort them out. You are a marker in all our lives in this family. No more denial. No more conflict. Only truth. Only honesty. Only love. Intolerance is the word you chose to share with me this morning. Your reservoir of hurt is now overflowing and intolerance is the wall built around it. I will always stand with you on the town green of our family and hold the signs proudly; I TOLERATE ONLY LOVE. I IDENTIFY ONLY LOVE. HATEFUL WORDS ARE NOT SPOKEN HERE.
THERE IS ONLY ROOM FOR LOVE AND LIGHT. NOTHING ELSE IS INVITED IN.
I feel the highwayness of this poem. I hear the exhaustion, I am taken by the writer's powerful realization that 'trying to live by someone else's unbendable rules just to be allowed in their life is exhausting'. There is hope in this poem, in the sense that I can hear the underlying anger ("you hit me where it hurts the most"). On a highway, the driver has control of the car, unless she doesn't. Is this car veering out of control, or has the writer taken control away from the mother? That is where I see the hope, maybe the writer hasn't full control of the car ("I've veered off the path...taking chances"), but she seems to be saying she is aware she has the option to at least fight for control of the car. The fight feels foreign and she doesn't have the honed skills of the mother, yet she is acknowledging she is an adult ("I cannot play by your rules anymore"). Adults don't have to play by the emotional rules of other adults, they only do it if they want or need something from that other person. When we face our core issues and acknowledge our (somtimes conflicting) deep wants and needs, we can be freed of them and search for healthy ways to meet those wants and needs.
a side note to this poem:
"drive fast, take chances" was something my dad would always say when saying goodbye.
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