Generational healing happens in the malls, on the sidewalks, and in heartfelt listening.

My mom reached level 72 today.

The day after James dropped the bomb I said “can I just come sleep at your house, I can’t be here anymore but I don’t really know where to go”.

I’ve been here ever since because I still don’t know but I’ve at least landed on the ground of not knowing and being ok with it for now.  Letting my nervous system regulate until I have the capacity to decide again has been an interesting practice of patience and humility.

When she was "level 45" she went through a heartbreak of her own. Finally putting both feet into another marriage, he ripped the rug out from under her and she was left to pick up the pieces and grieve the devastation.

She’s been helping me do the same.

Letting me ramble on for hours as I digest wtf just happened and recalibrate to what will.

Sharing her stories and thoughts and emotions and experiences. Letting me make sense of mine.

The other day she helped me take my car in for much needed maintenance. A faulty wiring harness for my headlight that I’d been putting off fixing for years.

(I evaded many headlight tickets. To

most, getting pulled over would be enough to spur the urgency to repair, but similar to the pain tolerance I’ve developed for holding trauma, police warnings aren’t much of a motivator for me after the cop encounters I’ve experienced in my past lives;)

We dropped the car off and headed to eat.

I was struggling with reconciling the phrase that James ended me with.

“I love you and I don’t want to do this with you anymore”.

How, even though brutally destroyed in one sentence, I appreciated the decisiveness after so much ambivalence, as well as the layer of relief in his honesty and bravery to make it,

and

it simultaneously seemed dishonest.

Hiding a deeper truth.

A deeper fear.

And I’m still weaving it all together.

While I realize there’s good in knowing when to quit. There’s love in things like giving a child up for adoption because you can’t care for it like it deserves. There’s also cowardice on the other end of that love.

A fear of failing.

A fear of responsibility and commitment to another’s life.

A fear of connection.

Of being known.

Of vulnerability.

Of love.

6 years into that relationship, 43 years old, but energetically and suddenly I was simply 6 again - my mom did a similar thing to my dad - then gave me to him.

It’s mind, body, & heart boggling to fathom the gravity of hurt inside that fractalized abyss.

She loved and loves me I know, but as we ate all of this bubbled up. I asked questions trying to understand. None of her answers were sufficient. The tension grew. I shut down. I let it rest because I didn’t want to give a guilt trip or misstep but there was something wanting to be expressed.

To be known.

We picked up the car. It cost $25 and took 30 minutes to fix something that I waited years to prioritize.

The significance of this mirror doesn’t miss me.

We drive to the container store. 

In my separate car now I’m doing my processing and purging which looks like letting it all come up and screaming it out. (It’s a thing, y’all should try it;)

As I arrive, I’m still needing to process so I go grab a cold pressed juice and sit in the skylit mall lobby to reflect a bit deeper.

Through my contemplations I realize there’s a deeper hurt that I’ve never acknowledged. Yes there have been honorable mentions and touches on apologies for the abandonment but I never really expressed it plainly.

And she never really owned it.

Because I always unwittingly 'took it back'.

She came to sit with me and we continued talking. I fumbled for the words, she resisted to hear them a bit but finally I said what I needed.

“Mom, I know you were doing your best and you are showing up great for me today which I very much appreciate,

and, (the hard part, the truth)

I was tortured by you leaving, tortured, everyday I didn’t get to see you”.

I paused feeling terrified that I was making my mom feel bad and then caught the fear and reminded myself 'I’m not responsible for her feelings, she gets to feel bad for how she hurt me, don’t save her from that.  Feel it with her.' My therapeutic process in action.

She responded earnestly but a bit exasperated with

“It’s in the past and to my credit I showed up when you were 16 and I don’t know what I can do about it now.”

I said plainly,

“I know, you DID show up sometimes

and

I need you to say you’re sorry”.

With tears welling she looked me in the eyes and said

“Kelle, I am so sorry I hurt you.”

Crying and wanting to push it away/take it back with that unconscious reaction of

“it’s ok, don’t worry I’m fine now”

so that she could feel relieved and then I could too, I instead stayed with the pain a little longer and finally fully received the apology. Then simply said,

“Thank you”.

We finally prioritized space to fix what’s been hurting. In moments, in the middle of the noisy mall we deepened our healing what we’d put off for decades.

You can’t rush your healing it’s true. You can’t force moments like these. But you can prioritize them.

I pray we all do.

I’ve done decades of work to get here.

She has too.

Thank you mom for healing with me.

Happiest bEARTHday.

Thank you for bearing me and with me. Cheers to new levels of age and love.

I love you.

The Afterward

Fun side note: I woke up at 4am as it seems my new wake up time since my nervous system and subconscious have so much to process and reorganize as I heal.

I got to type this among other things before I started my 1:1 sessions to help others heal theirs.

I got a lunch break and met 3 of my siblings downtown for my Mom’s birthday.

In the middle of the sidewalk outside of Eva’s Bakery we all leaned into a similar impromptu group healing sesh.

I’m so filled with gratitude for the healing ripples that can happen as we learn to hold space for each other. To speak the truth and honor the pain and ask for the healing words or actions we’ve been yearning for our entire lives.

(When you heal yourself, you heal those around you, your family, your ancestry.)

My prayer written above was instantly manifested and answered and so I’ll say it again amplified in a thankful deep bow of gratitude for my mom and siblings and the spirit of forgiveness.

I send some of this seemingly exponential and profoundly healing energy your way.

May we all FOR give and find the love we’ve been seeking.