Saturday, July 2, 2011

I cried in public today

I was waiting in a line with my one-year-old in a mei tai. A nice elderly couple started talking to me and cooing to the baby, tickling her. The man, in particular, paid special attention to her, and his wife kept saying "Oh, grandpa, you're boring that poor baby!"

And I just burst into tears, right there, in that line. I couldn't help it.

It occurred to me that this perfect stranger paid more real, positive attention to my child than my father has to both my children in the 4.5 years that I've been a mother.

And I was just so sad. I was so close to asking these people to adopt me.

I told my aunt this. She hugged me. I feel kind of "adopted".

I've become so much more vulnerable lately. I "didn't need" love before, or hugs, or attention. I was "strong". It was all so sickly sweet and sentimental to me. But it is only the narcissists' fake displays that are syrupy and sickening. The real thing also exists. And it's truly nourishing and wholesome.

7 comments:

  1. i've been through that. i've walked around the mall crying cause i kept seeing daughters with their mothers, sons with their mothers, little kids with their mothers, and it occurred to me that these mothers were normal and mine wasn't, and oh, how these moms were being truer and more normal to their kids in these moments than my mom ever was. it was all so overwhelmingly normal and to realize that that is what i never had...it was just so overwhelmingly sad to see it happening all around me. like grief. yeah man, SAD.

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  2. I learned that I don't miss what I never had. But once I experienced the real thing, going without was so much harder. The contrast were sharper and more painful. I also went through a time of grieving and I am not sure I am finished yet. Thanks for sharing your tender moment. Tender moments are sometimes sad, sometimes not. Hope you have many more of the good kind of tender moments that leave you warm and fuzzy. :)

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  3. You don't miss what you never had until you get it and realize that you've been deprived of it your entire life.

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  4. Oh, Pronoia, go ahead and tell your children they're adorable in any silly way you choose, and if you mean what you say, it won't be sentimentality, it will be real sentiment.

    - GKA

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  5. ((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))))))
    It's good to cry. It's cleansing and true and real, you know? It's the real you crying because these people were so sweet and lovely, and you glimpsed what can't be. You acknowledged a real feeling---without having to be brave or strong or defensive---and if it mean crying, so be it.

    And I hear you, hon. I've been crying more these past 2 months than my entire life. And at the weirdest places, too, when my guard slips.

    (hugs again)

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  6. Thank you, guys! You make me cry, too!

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  7. you cried today in public b/c you are ALIVE. You are REAL and you can offer that to your beloved child.

    "What you can FEEL, you can HEAL."

    *HUGS*

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