It was a good weekend. Saturday started off slow and leisurely with Tim and I cuddled on the couch catching up on episodes of Turn and drinking our morning coffee. It ended up being so windy outside (gusts up to 50 mph) that our photographers decided to reschedule our shoot to Thursday morning. I was kind of disappointed, but I’d rather capture the perfect shot to announce our pregnancy than battle with flying debris and my hair being totally uncooperative.
I called up a girlfriend of mine who was supposed to come with us to the shoot (she offered to do my makeup and my hair) and asked if she and her boyfriend were still interested in having lunch. They said yes, so we met up with them at The Longhorn for a light lunch and a LOT of good conversation. I think we must have been there for a good 2 hours, even after our plates had been cleared and the checks paid, just chatting. Being pregnant has obviously prevented me from drinking, and I realized during those 2 hours that before I got pregnant, I was drinking with far too much frequency. It was so refreshing to have 4 adults sitting at a table with iced tea and water just enjoying each others company without the aid of alcohol. And that’s not to say I hadn’t done that before, but for some reason the realization just really sunk in at lunch.
After we left, Tim and I went for a drive. Aside from the roaring winds it was GORGEOUS on Saturday. So we cranked up the radio and took the long way home. He held my hand and I sang along to the songs and it was just a beautiful, quiet way to connect. I really had a good day on Saturday.
After we got home Tim left to hang out with Jackson and Chelsey came over for a while. She and I settled in with some junk food and watched Bob’s Burgers and relaxed. She ended up falling asleep on the couch and I cuddled with my cats.
Once she left, I decided to go for a walk. It was roughly 10pm and the moon was full. I stepped outside and took a deep breath of the evening air. What I love most about this complex is that even on a Saturday night, it’s quiet after 10. I walked several laps around the buildings. The moon’s soft glow lit up the grounds and instilled a sense of peace in me that I’d been longing for. I was out there for what felt like hours, even though it ended up being roughly 20 minutes or so. I sat on the picnic table in the back yard and just looked up at the moon and the stars. I said a small prayer, cleaned myself in Her light, and decided to come in and do a formal ritual for the Full Moon.
I filled a jar with blessed moon water and anointed my stomach with it. I asked the goddess to bless the water, the nectar of life, and to bless whatever it touches. I ‘m going to leave it on the altar for one moon cycle and refill it as needed. It was so refreshing to do an “in the moment” ritual. It was powerful and beautiful and inspiring. And to end it, I laid on my back, candles lit all around me, held my stomach and sang whatever came into my head. It ended up being a lovely serenade to the baby. I wish I could remember it, but I guess that’s the beauty of things like that.
Sunday was a different kind of day. Tim and I went to my parent’s house and I helped mom cook dinner. At first, I wasn’t going to bring up the issue regarding her abuse of pills. I was scared and I didn’t feel that a holiday was the appropriate time to bring something like that up… but mostly, to be honest, I was afraid.
But then she did. She mentioned that she stopped taking the pills for the baby. I just stared at her. At first, I was angry. Thoughts kept running through my head like, “I wasn’t good enough, but my unborn child is?” And the second I realized that was an active thought I pushed it away because it’s certainly not my baby’s fault that my mother is an addict.
So I stare at her. And the conversation goes as follows:
Mom: I had to stop taking the pills because I want to see my grandchild.
Me: I hope so, mom. Because if I find out, that even one time, you were on them. And I will find out, because I always do, it will be the last time you ever watch the baby.
Mom: crying Well I had to stop because your father kept taking them all.
Me: Stop it. Stop blaming dad. I’m not talking to him, I’m talking to you. And I wont allow my child to be around someone who’s high.
Mom: Do you really think I’d do that to my grand baby?
Me: You did it to me.
The rest of the day was a lot of crying, laughing, and the most comfortable I’ve been around my mom in a long time. We sat at the kitchen table after dinner for hours and sipped on coffee and had cheesecake and talked about things we haven’t talked about in years. And I realized something about my mother that I think I’ve subconsciously ignored for a long time… my mom is really, really depressed. She deflects, all the time, to placing the blame on everything in her life on my dad. It’s a long, tragic story but in laments terms my parents are co-dependent and toxic for each other. The main difference, however, is that my dad doesn’t let my mom drag him down. This makes her feel like she has no impact in his life and gives her further reason to blame him for her unhappiness. My mother doesn’t know how to be alone. And when she is alone, she gets depressed. So she uses to handle her depression.
But I connected with her yesterday, for the first time in a long time. And I told her to look into seeing a therapist. I’m not sure if she’ll do it, but I at least know she was listening to me. And I learned something from all of this too. I learned that my relationship with my mother isn’t entirely her fault. I have done nothing in the past few years to try and fix us because of my anger. Because of how much I hated everything she did to me and made me feel. Things between my mother and I can’t get better until she learns to forgive herself and I learn to forgive her.
And I’m ready to start trying.
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