I arrived in Calgary yesterday morning at 11:15 amid beautiful but windy weather, still sleepy from the night before. My luggage took longer than it should've to roll off the conveyor belt, but soon I was wheeling it down the hallway to arrivals, where I was greeted by my Tourism Calgary representative, who chirped, "I'm your stand-in girlfriend for the weekend!" (See, I'm doing a Girlfriend Getaway trip. And while I have girlfriends in Calgary, I can't see any singular one being into all the activities I'm doing. Luckily my stand-in is awesome.)
Anyway. We loaded my stuff in the car and she whisked me off to Eau Claire market, where we parked the car and then walked over the bridge into Prince's Island Park, where we took an outdoor table at the River Café. We each had a flute of sparkling wine and launched into our respective stories, talking like friends do, until lunch arrived. It was a lovely way to start my trip.
After we finished signing for the bill, I stood from my seat and walked toward the exit.
And that's when I realized my mother had been sitting two tables away from me.
For those of you who don't know me personally or haven't read the book, my relationship with my mother has been a rocky one... and up until recently I thought it would be something we could surmount. We've been through bouts of not speaking to each other before, but I think this most recent one - which hits four years this October - drove the final nail into the coffin. I felt like she'd been picking on me and told her so, and - admittedly - said some things to her that were taken poorly even though they weren't meant that way. She'd told me I was mean-spirited, and that was the end of it. I've heard nothing since.
I took my time to process my side of things and decided that mending the relationship was more important to me than my ego, so last fall I sent her an e-mail that expressed my regret in hurting her feelings and told her that I loved and supported her no matter what. I've still not received a response. And yet, when a friend who came to live with us during junior high asked for her contact info and dropped her a note, she responded right away.
Let's just say I took the hint.
So when I saw her sitting there, I was literally stunned. Part of me wanted to stop and stare for a moment to ensure I was seeing what I thought I was seeing, but I kept moving, and kept watching. It was most definitely her. She was having lunch with an old friend of hers from way back when we lived in another city. I focused my attention on walking again and propelled myself out of the restaurant, then stood frozen in the walkway as I placed my hand over my chest, fearing that my heart was going to leap out of it.
"Are you okay?" My stand-in pal asked.
I nodded. "I just saw my mother," I said, and marveled at how strange the words sounded coming out of my mouth.
"Oh! Do you want to go back and say hi?"
I looked at her blankly.
"...or I'm assuming this isn't a good thing," she finished.
"I need to make a phone call, I'm sorry," I said, and called Shar to ask her what to do. And when Shar didn't pick up, I said in the message I left her, "The fact that I have to call you and ask you if I should say anything to her clearly illustrates that I shouldn't, or else I wouldn't be questioning it. So I think I've answered my own question." And I hung up.
But then, something shifted in me. My hypnotherapist describes this element of my subconscious as "Little Carly" - the inner child who still rears her ugly head looking for love and attention from time to time. And Little Carly was barking loudly in my brain, drawing up romantic notions about how I could approach my mom and we could have a tearful reunion, and then we could spend time patching things up, healing old wounds, clearing the air.
But none of that felt right. None of that felt like anything other than a fairy tale in my head. To be sure I called Adam and I asked him what to do.
"Did she see you?" he asked.
I shook my head as if he could see me and said, "No."
"Then you don't owe her anything," he said. "Move on."
"Thank you," I said, and hung up the phone.
But it weighed on my head all day. I didn't regret not saying anything, and it's very clear that the universe was sending me a big, fat message. I mean, Calgary is a city full of three-million people. What are the odds that she would show up at the same restaurant at the same time on the same day that I did, a mere hour after I landed in the city? It was too coincidental. But the other thing I found interesting about the whole thing is I didn't debate walking over to say something to her because I wanted to, or because I had something to say. I debated it because I felt obligated to, just because she's my mother.
Later that night, laying on my hotel room bed with Tobes eating healthy junk food and catching up on each other's lives, I recounted the story again.
"Were you wearing that top?" she asked me after we'd run through the whole scenario and all the other basic questions, like how did you feel and how do you feel now.
I nodded. I was wearing a grey shirt from H&M that had a scoop neck, exposing much collar bone and much shoulder.
"Dude," she said. "She was sitting two tables behind you? Your tattoos are totally visible."
I thought about that for the rest of the night until I fell asleep. I was sitting right in front of her, and she didn't see my tattoos. I walked right past her, and she didn't see me.
She didn't see me.
The more I sat and thought about it, the more I was able to put words to things I was never really able to explain. And I think what I've never been able to explain to myself, let alone anyone else, is that I don't think she's ever really seen me as being a part of her life. There's a giant lump in my throat as I write this, but it's true. Throughout my whole life I can look back on various kinds of behaviors and red flags that, if exhibited by a man I were dating, would give me a solid message that he just wasn't that into me. And yet, I still mooned over the situation, hoping she would change her mind and see me as worthy. And yeah, I get that she's my mother and it should be different, but it's not. It's just not. And I can't fight that anymore.
I went for a long walk tonight and had a good cry about it, and said things that I've always wanted to say (but never would) out to the ethers, just to get it out of me. And once I did, I repeated to myself, "This pain ends here" until I could say it without my voice cracking, and with a conviction that I knew meant I was saying it from my core. And I'm not saying that I'm not going to periodically feel weird about that relationship's trajectory - it's a part of me, and that's something I can never deny. But I've now become capable of letting it go on a level that I was never able to before.
I think I finally get that her not including me in her life doesn't make me a bad person, or damaged goods, or unworthy of love and affection.
And for the first time ever, that's finally the truth.
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