mom
Last weekend, I saw her for the first time in over a year. It’s not that we don’t talk—on the surface, we do. But beneath it, there’s this...thing between us. A distance. It’s not the kind you can measure, but the kind you feel. Time has been eroding that distance all along, much like corrosion eating at the foundation.
It’s the kind of distance that creeps up on you, like when you walk into a room and step on garbage juice. You choose not to say anything about it, even though it stinks, it's inconvenient, it’s disgusting and you both know it’s there. But you just keep walking, acting like it’s not a problem. That’s us. The small injuries that pile up without anyone saying, "this hurts," until suddenly it’s so painful you can’t ignore it anymore. But by then, it’s too late. Too much time has passed, and we’ve both become experts at pretending nothing is wrong. That wet spot? It's all the years of shit we’ve just...let slide. We let it slide, hoping it would disappear on its own. But it doesn’t. It lingers. It festers. Spreads.
I've come to understand that my mother’s story isn’t just about what she couldn’t give me. It’s about what she never received. The emotional protection I longed for, the comfort I needed most—those moments of reassurance and care—were things her own mother failed to offer. What I mistook for neglect was, in fact, a silent inheritance she carried from her own upbringing—an inheritance she never intended to pass on, but inevitably did. What I thought was love, or closeness, was really just a version of survival. Surviving the proximity. Surviving the silence. Surviving the absence.
Thinking back, it wasn’t just the things she did—or didn’t do. It was the way she inhabited the world, the way she moved through life dragging her own unspoken pain, her unresolved fears, and how those things left imprints on me. In her silence, she unwittingly became the architect of the hurt I haul around with me and into my relationships.
I always believed my mother’s actions came from innocence, from a place of not knowing any better. But lately, with this ever-growing distance between us, I’ve been thinking...or maybe it’s the thinking itself that’s making the distance grow? Either way, the question I keep coming back to is—why am I totally fine with not calling her for days, even weeks? Why does that feel okay? And, most unsettling of all, why does this genuinely feel good? It’s like a weight has lifted, but the relief is confusing.
Am I numb? Is this some survival mechanism I picked up as a kid? Maybe this silence is my way of protecting myself from old wounds I don’t fully understand but have always felt. What if withdrawing is my body’s way of keeping me safe from the vulnerability of connection? What if it’s not about her innocence? What if she simply doesn’t want to understand? Or what if my mother doesn’t care enough to make the effort? I’m left questioning what this distance is—what if it’s not just a response to her, but also a reflection of my own need to rationalize my withdrawal?
You can't convince me that after 60-plus years, she hasn't developed a few patterns, philosophies, and behaviors that have worked for her. After all, when it comes to her husband, she's willing to dive into all the emotional complexity, to unpack the layers. But why is it that same effort, that same willingness to understand, isn’t applied to her children? Why, when it comes to us, do the emotional rules suddenly shift? If she can handle the mess and navigate the depth of one relationship, why not extend that same effort to the ones that matter just as much—if not more?
This shift in thinking—it’s a strange mix of doubt and instinct. It’s like knowing a truth that you can’t quite articulate, but you feel it in your bones, nonetheless. It forces me to not only question the past but also reconsider whether any real connection is even possible moving forward.
Maybe that’s what it all comes down to—can you ever truly escape the patterns that shape you? Can you find something worth fighting for when everything around you feels like it’s been built on survival alone? Or does the emptiness, the silence, become too overwhelming to break through?
These questions, these reflections, come with their own kind of grief. The kind that reshapes your understanding of yourself, your past, and your future. It’s not just the loss of the mother I thought I knew, but the deeper ache of the mother I needed her to be. The version of her that never existed, yet the one I so desperately longed to believe in. That the hole I’ve been carrying around isn’t something I can fill with wishing or some nostalgic fairy tale.
I don’t believe in happy endings. Not how they sell it, at least. Where everything wraps up neatly in the last scene and everyone suddenly finds salvation. Redemption arcs are a fucking fantasy. Life doesn’t work like that. It’s ugly. Too broken. People are messier, more complex, more flawed—more human. My mother is human. I am human.
And last weekend, I learned a hard truth. Some wounds don’t heal. Some things can’t be salvaged—they stay broken, and no amount of wishing, hoping or pretending can change that. They just are. And they remain.
Thanks for reading,
V.