Divine Secrets

Lately, I’ve been re-reading The Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood. Last night, as I stretch out in bed turning page after page, it occurred to me that I’m a wee bit obsessed with Mother – Daughter stories. And in thinking about that, I naturally thought about you.

Anyone looking at the history of my life might expect me to be searching for a father. And perhaps I did for a long time. Perhaps that’s what my adolescent promiscuity was about – filling up the male love & attention deficit that had existed so long. But sometime I outgrew that. I quit fixating on that loss. I accepted what happened as what happened and moved on. I even forgave.

But you, on the other hand, you were there for me. If not always in the most appropriate ways or in the most present ways. You were there. There is no mother shaped hole in m soul. But I’m still looking for you. I’m still trying to figure out whole this whole mother-daughter thing works. And it seems to me that this mother-daughter thing, whatever it is, is a fundamental relationship, the thing from which all other relationships spring.

I went through a long time of being angry at you for the things you didn’t protect me from. For sitting in the back den doing needlepoint while I thought, really believed, that this time Daddy was going to beat me to death. I know I screamed, and I know that he frightened me so badly I lost control of my bladder as he held my the neck with my feet not even touching the floor. I know you remember nothing about it. For you it simply did not exist. I was angry for all the nights you left me home alone with him when he was so drunk and completely out of control. I was angry for all the cries for help from me that went unanswered, the suicide attempts, the running away from home, the grades that went from A’s to barely passing. But I understand now that you simply could not hear those things. They were not allowed into your realty. They were too much.

And in understanding, I’ve forgiven.

So why is it now, in the middle of my life, that it’s you I’m searching so hard for? It’s you that I crave when I’m sliding down into the pit. It’s you that I want when I’m afraid. And while you almost invariably come through, it’s never enough.

When I had the lump in my breast, and you came to visit on your way to see your sister, You pulled up to the side of the road and motioned me into your car. No hugs. Your presence, the fact that you took the time to came, stayed with me for a while, all of that should speak louder than the lack of that first hug, but God, how I wanted to fall into your arms.

I always want that. I want you to be one of those mother who holds her children, and you just aren’t. When we do hug, you always pull away first, and always with some sense that you find my clinging to you an invasion, a violation of some sort.

Somewhere in me there is a child who wants to crawl into your lap and be assured that everything is going to be okay  I don’t have a single memory of being held in you lap and comforted – those memories all belong to your mother. But the desire is there. Something deep and profound. Something like homesickness. I want to curl up and crawl back into your womb. I want to be surrounded by the safety of you. I want the intimacy and I want that constant attention.

All completely unreasonable. I know. And as you told me once, you’ve tried to be a lot of things to me, but you can’t be everything to me. And of course, you’re right. Both right in the sense that it can’t be done, and right in the sense that somehow that’s what I really want. For you to be everything to me.

But I sit with the Ya-Ya’s and I want to at least know your history. I want to know your stories. I want to know about you and your friends growing up. I want to know about first dates and party dresses. I want to know about Proms, and boy friends, and going all the way to Boston alone for your first two years of college. I want to know what your hopes and dreams have been, and how they’ve survived the trip. I want to know what you felt when you were pregnant with my sister and me. I want to know about all those luncheons and meetings that took you away from me as a child. I want to know when you learned how to make the unpleasant simply not exists. I want to know you. I want to be an expert in you.

Because you’ve always held this huge spot in my heart. Right there in the middle. I want to know the landscape of your heart too.