The Truth About Fictional Happy Family Feelings

I well up with tears when underdog contestants survive another round of cuts in televised singing competitions. I swell with pride when characters in movies stand up for themselves or realize their lifelong dreams. I’m right there with all of them. I even try to help the pregnant pioneer woman push out her baby. I feel all their feelings. I think it may be that I want to feel the love my mother didn’t know how to give me. That’s the kindest way I can say that. It may be that she chose not to give her love to me because she was afraid she wouldn’t have enough leftover for herself. But here’s the thing, my mother is the one who taught me to feel all those feelings when I watched television or movies, or immersed myself in books. Just the other day, and mind you I’m well past 60, I finally realized that she was doing the same thing then I do now. She was trying to feel all the feelings no one had ever given to her. She taught me by example. I learned to get my happy family fix from fiction, which was fitting because they weren’t true in my real life. But I had never stopped to think that they weren’t true for my mother either. But here’s what matters. I offered my love to my mother. She didn’t accept it when I was young. Again, maybe she couldn’t or perhaps she wouldn’t, but her way to cope was to wall up her heart. I learned to put mine on a table like a pinned butterfly. I thought love was worth the dangers of vulnerability. My mother decided that vulnerability wasn’t worth the dangers of love. I like my way better. Have I been hurt? Hell yeah. Was it worth it? Absolutely. Because being vulnerable taught me the most important lesson of all. How to love myself. That’s my cake. That’s my sustenance. Other people loving me is sweet but it’s just the icing. Of course, I do like to always eat the icing first.