30 seconds at a stop light.
the light turns red.
i thought about a wedding i needed to finish editing. the couples cute apartment in mira mesa. their apartment only minutes away from where my mom teaches at the college. she got that job 6 years ago. my mom became friends with another professor when she started teaching there and within a year that same woman snapped and said horrible, untruthful things about my mom. friendship ended.
a pain in my chest.
cars keep moving around me. the light is red.
the wound passes through the womb. i remember how i heard that on Oprah once. the wound passes through the womb. i feel the pain and yet, it isn’t my pain, but hers that i have taken as my own. how heavy are the burdens we bare that aren’t even our own?
our parent’s un-dealt with pain becomes our own.
a pain in my chest. the light is red.
cars keep moving. driving. but i feel frozen. the quickening pace of life around me, propelling me forward and i’m forced to feel this fragility. somewhere in my life i started to believe that i could solve my parent’s problems. somehow if i could be something for them, i could fix them. i could heal their heartache with how well i stayed within the yellow lines. and i did, i stayed well.
i thought about my little ones. those three whose eyes gaze at me in adoration. i don’t want them to bare my burdens. i don’t want them to believe they have the power to fix my pain. i never want them to feel like their obedient hands could somehow mend my mess. loving them perhaps means entering my own wounds, welcoming all the waves i fear can crush me, and whispering that story of my healing into their tiny hearts.
the light turns green.
love this one of him from our wedding last weekend.
i saw them sitting outside and i had to run and get my camera. three old friends. sitting, sharing, and doing what they have been doing for over 20 years.
by anjuli
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