A Facebook post I want to preserve from Mother's Day 2021...

Mother’s Day is still on my mind. It snuck up on me this year (been busy working on stuff for WOTG,) so I didn’t have time to process my complicated feelings regarding the holiday. So, a few days after, I am still stuck in that dark place, struggling to put the complicated feelings back on the shelf. Yes, it’s not the healthy way to deal with the emotions, but as I said, it’s complicated.

Complicated. My relationship with my Mom was complicated. When I was growing up, she never overtly said it, but I always had more than a vague impression I was a disappointment to her; she would have been far happier had I been a boy or if I must be a girl, I would be tall, thin, and a lot less opinionated. Before her death, when Alzheimer’s started changing her personality, she was more overt and confirmed my long held suspicions. I don’t think she realized she treated me differently. She loved me in her own way, and I loved her. I just tried harder to make her like me more. So yeah, complicated.

Add to this my own complex emotions regarding my inability to have a child of my own. My 2001 hysterectomy saved my life, but to be honest I couldn’t see that at the time. It’s been twenty years and I still cry over what I thought should have been. So yeah, complicated.

Mix in the emotions of being a step-parent and well, I go from complicated to convoluted. When Chuck proposed, I made a vow that I would not become the stereotypical wicked step mother. I decided I would be a caregiver, but all major decisions and any necessary discipline would be Chuck’s purview. In hindsight, I should have maybe tried to be less neutral. But you know, whatever way I approached it, it wouldn’t have made it any less complicated. And perhaps my failings as a step mother show that I would’ve made a horrible mother. So yeah, complicated.

Now that the kids have their own families, I’m confused. I call myself a grandma, but deep down I feel like a fraud. I love the kids and their babies as much as I love my husband. But I am still just the odd woman who lives with their Papaw. So yeah, complicated.

I’m not really sure why I’m sharing this. I’m not really looking for sympathy or advice. I prayed about my feelings earlier today and God laid it on my heart to share. I asked Him for forgiveness and part of that process is forgiving myself. As complicated as this sounds, I don’t feel like I’m in the dark place I was earlier today.