The Birthday Party
Not too long ago, while I was writing my book for single mothers, my second husband and I attended a sixtieth birthday party for a dear friend, whom I have known for many years. Part of her celebration included a video chronology of her life. As I sat watching her story unfold on the screen, I entered a time warp of old emotions, and felt an old clutch at my heart. An all too familiar sadness enfolded me.
There on the screen was picture after picture of my friend with her husband through various happy phases of raising their children. How fulfilled she looked, and how sad I felt. Her story seemed to be to be in glaring contrast to my own; and it started me thinking about that old sour story that I have all too often told myself...that story that always made my heart heavy.
The old story goes like this:
"While all the women who remained in relationships with the biological fathers were making memories (and money) and creating rituals and routines with their children, in their perfect intact families, Bette was just a drone, hard at work, plugging away to survive and trying to find some sort of life satisfaction. My children were going in other directions, perhaps with grandparents, on a family outing with relatives or friends, while I had to stay focused on survival mode, just feeling lonely and overburdened.”
While certainly there were kernels of truth to my story, the reality of what was happening to me in those years was not as grim and sad as the story I often told myself. The truth was that my intact family unit DID change when my marriage ended, and I DID have to work hard to survive. But this wasn't as awful as I often would tell myself. I had good friends, some good times, and I was blessed to find work I have continued to love.
Indeed, during those struggle years, I got much stronger. I developed close relationships with my two daughters, and we managed to do some wonderful things together, often including other friends or relatives who would be surrogates for the missing family member. My children have grown up to be well functioning, healthy women who have been able to form good relationships with their husbands and their husbands' families. Some very good things must have happened in those years. There are many other stories available to me other than that worn out old story that distorts the truth into a sour version of reality.
And yet, given the right circumstances, the negative story can be as close as the next heartbeat. Why? I wonder is this the case? Why does old hurt stand the test of time? How can we dispense with these distortions that are almost like lies that we tell ourselves? This question has intrigued me, and I believe that in the answer to it is the secret to real recovery of Self. And I think that the answer is simple. The old hurt survives as long as we tell ourselves the old story! We have only to turn the page and read another version!
It is possible you have these old stories affecting you too. While there is worth and benefit to knowing your story in all its aspects, negative as well as positive, you can free yourself from the painful grip of negative emotions if you work your way back in time to childhood, adolescence and beyond to see how exactly you scripted the scenarios of your life. What old hurt has lodged itself in some sour scenario that you repeat in your own head? To free yourself, consider this: If we see ourselves not as victims of what has happened to us, but rather as key players who have made choices and have created our own circumstances we are empowered Selves in our own lives!
No, no one chooses pain overtly and consciously. However most of us single mothers have a generous helping of pain. When handled well pain can become fertilizer for growing and for growing up. It is my deepest hope that you will find a way to understand how you have fashioned your own story and will find and create ways to re-script it for greater peace and fulfillment as a single mother.
Yes, the sad story is always with me; and I can step into it as easily as my old fur-lined slippers. There is even an odd comfort in old sadness. It is part of me, and I do not have to give it up. I can keep it in the mental archives, take it out and dust if off, if I need a look. After all, the old pain motivated me to grow and become more whole. At the same time, I now have another story that lives in me along side the old one. The new story is one I choose to remember over and over; for it has to do with the joy of coming out of the mire of fear and resentment, and moving into the fullness of an authentic and solid sense of Self.