In the moment of stillness

In a group meeting the other day, we were speaking about a time when you learned a behavior as a child as a coping mechanism, and how you brought it into your adulthood, and why it no longer serves you.

My father loved to play backgammon, and he had friends over playing in the living room. I had come into the room and he said something to me, and I said something back, and for the life of me, I cannot remember what was said or even a feeling attached to it.

My father was rageaholic. My mother was an alcoholic.

All I knew is that it made my father mad. When his friends left, he confronted me by cocking his arm back and punching me closed fist, full force in my face, which knocked me back into the fireplace. I jumped up and stood in front of him staring him right in the eyes and daring him to do it again. He looked at me disgusted and left the room. I can remember thinking – come on motherfucker, hit me one more time. I was 13 years old.

Seventeen years later, my mother recounted this story. The way she told it, was do you remember that time when you defied your father, you stood up to him. I don’t know where you got your confidence from. And I remember thinking – bitch, where were you? Who was protecting me? I was 30 years old.

I told this story in ACA, and then the story lingered and blossomed inside of me into a healing. I carried that “bring it on, motherfucker” stance into my adulthood. You can’t hurt me has always been my go to position. It took so long to realize that you could hurt me. The realization that I hurt made me start identifying times when I was hurt, and the feelings associated with being hurt. Feelings I never knew I had because I had become so adroit at masking and numbing myself.

My son came into this world like a ball of fire. He entered my ozone layer and caught my whole world on fire. This fiery meteor set me on a path of healing that made most of my work before him seem like child’s play. Today is Mother’s Day. I told my friend in ACA that mothering has been so hard, it has been harder than I envisioned it ever being, and it’s not what I thought it would be. I so wanted to make up for the lack of mothering I had. Her response was, “Rachel, you are the mother you wanted to be. You have a challenging child.”

My memoir – Mothering is Mother Fucker – will come out one day. In the meantime, being a mother to myself has been the greatest gift my child could have ever given me. To my 13-year-old self, I say, “I’m here now. I’ll protect you.”

_{The Book of Alchemy by Suleika Jaouad. 
This writing came from the prompt by Rachel Schwartzmann:
Do nothing for five minutes and then write down your thoughts}