The day before my birthday, I received a mysterious email from my husband.
Letter from your mom arriving today.
It had been nearly a year since we had spoken. I clicked on the attachment to find the mugshot of an envelope addressed to me.
How did you get this?
He had registered for a daily digest to track important correspondence coming to the house.
After a terrible argument nearly a year ago, she’d decided to cut ties. From then on, radio silence—the emotional bookend to what I’d felt as a kid when my parents divorced and she moved away. In the decades since, that cavernous ache had dulled. But here it was again, weighing me down anew.
In the many months since we last spoke, I’ve come to accept that this pain was mine to process. I was responsible for cleaning up my own energy and figuring out how to heal. In the pre-dawn hours each morning, I set out on foot, gathering strength from the towering trees and expanse of sky. I breathed in the infinite power of the universe, took it into my heart and sent love to my mother. Friends and family who needed some too flashed across my mind. I sent it to them as well, keeping a big poof of pink cotton candy love for myself.
On her birthday last July, I’d replied to a group email of other family members wishing her well. I sent a lighthearted story about our babysitter making me a sugar sandwich without her knowledge. Back then, my mother had insisted on only the healthiest food for her four young children. At the time, she would not have been amused, but she was now. She’d liked it well enough to share it with guests at her dinner. We’d exchanged good wishes but nothing after that.
In the week before my birthday, I had decided, as a gift to myself, that I would reach out to her with the following message:
After holding onto hurt feelings about you for forty years, I have finally figured out how to let them go. Over time, I have made many attempts, all unsuccessful. The need to protect that little girl inside me persisted. I somehow felt that if I left the past behind, I would abandon her along with it. After carrying the burden for so long, I finally realize it serves no one. I have chosen to shift to a more beautiful perspective in which I might offer you an apology instead of expecting one for myself. I am sorry for dragging past hurts into the present and not allowing you to move on from a difficult time in your life. For as far back as I can remember, it has been more important for me to be right than to be free. I have finally decided I want to be free. I want us both to be.
Before I got a chance to send the note, however, her card arrived in the mail. The pretty pink envelope didn’t look at all like the mugshot. It was the same color as the love I had sent her every day.
We tell ourselves stories about why people do what they do to make sense of what has happened to us. It’s human. But we don’t really know. We sometimes don’t even know why WE do what we do. I have finally let go of the story that my mother doesn’t love me. I have let go of the old story to allow her the dignity of her own journey. And I am enjoying my new found freedom.
When you finally choose to let go of old pain, you get the sense that it’s all going to be okay.
Love,
Elizabeth
WRITING PROMPT: Have you been able to let go of past hurt or are you still hanging on? How have your feelings about it changed over time, if at all?
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