This past weekend my mom and I drove to Cleveland to see my grandparents for Mother’s Day! I gave my gramma the photo book I made her- if you haven’t seen it already look on my Instagram. I watched my gramma become emotional as she was flipping through the book, all those memories came rushing back to her. Everyone at the table started to tear up watching my gramma pore over these pictures. The days we would go hiking up the mountains in Arizona to the days we would have fun in her garden. I always knew how much I meant to her as her first granddaughter. But it wasn’t until then that I realized just how special she was to me. So for this, today’s tea talk, or coffee as I now prefer, will be about my reflections on my family and how growing up has changed my perspectives of them.
I have written about before how when I was younger I would look up to my parents or my siblings as heroes. When things started changing, watching my family go through struggles they sort of became an antagonist in my story. I was angry at the world and I shut everyone out because in my young eyes, people were either good or bad. Obviously, as I have grown up I know the world is not black and white and people are complex beings including my own family.
As my mom and I were making our way back from Cleveland we got into an argument. I noticed the little girl coming out demanding to be listened to. It was something that I felt I could never forgive my mom for. I tried to ignore these feelings hoping that hiding this anger would help not to hinder our relationship. I was worried about her reaction, so I kept quiet. This way of thinking is something many people I’ve seen around me do. We tend to want to hide behind our protective emotional walls because we think it’s easier to live a life in fear of expressing those harder feelings. There’s been many conversations between my family members that should be had because it’s so obviously bothering and hurting them. Instead, they choose to be silent. When I finally let out my frustrations to my mom about what she’s done that hurt my feelings I felt this relief come off my body. I no longer had to lie to her about how I was feeling. I could share these struggles with her and she could support me in it. I didn’t have to hide.
Even though I did not intend to talk to my mom about this at all I’m happy I did. My advice is to speak up for yourself. I think we all have our issues when it comes to family and we can choose not to let these things define us. Having conflict in relationships is normal but we can handle them differently. This applies to certain situations, sometimes our parents are in no way shape, or form able to have these conversations but if you can you should. I learned that my family are not perfect heroes because they’re humans. I can look up to them but also recognize their weaknesses just as every hero has. But also even though I know that my family could benefit from talking to each other about the hard stuff, I’m not responsible for them to do it. I know how miserable it can be to hide, be quiet, and hold onto the past so I want to open the door for these conversations. I want to try to listen and understand. Maybe this is my psychology major speaking but when my mom told me of the things left unsaid it made sense how it passed down to me. I can understand her for not realizing how those words and actions were hurtful when it was normal to her growing up. And yes I’m talking about generational trauma here lol!
My family became this complex web of unspoken words, lingering emotions, and masking. They are all this repressed anger, fear, and sadness. They are these children who are also trying to enjoy life for the first time. We are all learning and I’m sure when I reach the time to have my own kids I’ll make mistakes too. Only this time I will talk to them about our feelings, apologize, tell them I love them, and continue to create a space where they don’t have to hide to survive.
