I just wanted you to wash my new tattoo.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to understand my childhood deeper, and have connected a lot of scattered dots in my life. I grew up in a loveless house. Partially because my Mother probably grew up in one as well, and breaking generational trauma wasn't discovered necessary until the millennials gave every therapist in town a wait list. By the time I came into her life, she was on the tail end of a third marriage, one with a man who I’m sure I’m more like today than I care to admit. Or I should say, I believe a lot of my “go to” coping mechanisms were shared between us. My Mother met my Step Dad when I was five, and as a middle aged-never married, no kids, blue collared man with a limited education, he was doomed from the moment they met. My Mother lived day by day with her own mental illnesses, untreated and undiagnosed, and I would imagine made decisions she felt were best throughout. My Mother found, what I believe was the first time in her life, a support she felt she needed from my Step Dad. He was able to give her financial peace, and she was able to create a new version of herself with that life. She carried a lot of the Boomer generational thoughts on parenting, and I don’t think she ever considered being vulnerable as a thought that crossed her head. I grew up listening to breathing and footsteps, or how doors closed, to know what I could do or say. I would walk down the street from the bus, and brace myself before turning into our driveway to see if she was pacing in the front living room window to yell at me about something. There were no discussions between us, only demands. There was never talking about feelings, only actions and consequences. We were middle class when that meant something, and she felt that because she was able to give me items and experiences that she never had growing up, that she was the best Mother I could ever want. She would say I Love You a lot more than you would think after reading that, but they were obligatory I Love You’s. They were a punctuation she thought she needed. They were her making up for the painful fact that her parents never once told her that, until my Grandfather was being taken away in an ambulance one night. I can’t begin to understand my Mother’s struggles growing up and what made her the way she was, and thankfully like thinking about outer space - there’s no reason to dwell. I’ll never know. Even if I did, I’d have to analyze my Grandparents' childhood, and the cycle would never end. 

I don’t think that the true weight of my growing up hit me until I had my second child. With my first, I was on survival mode immediately and didn’t take a breath from that until she was two and I was a single mom in my mid twenties. I don’t think I was ever trying to figure out my next steps as much as trying to get through day by day. Dramatic separation and custody with her Father for the first couple of years, in and out of low level jobs that didn’t “care”, all while trying to start a business that I probably had no business starting. With my second, I was in a relationship I believed I’d die in, when we found out about her it wasn’t a rush to an abortion clinic or crying devastation of what to do. It was peaceful. Sure, financial concerns, lack of outside support system, and a rough pregnancy - but then all of a sudden she was here, she ripped through my body without any medication or much warning on the day of, and I looked over at my husband with tears in his eyes holding her. In that moment I truly felt peaceful. For a moment, I didn’t care about the older than dirt doctor, how painful my entire pelvic floor felt, or how my Mother paged into the hospital room even though I hadn’t spoken to her in 5+ years. I felt like “this is it”, this is that peaceful bullshit TV show’s and books talk about. It’s easy to lose track of that moment in everything that followed, because that’s how life works. It’s one moment after the other, and in each moment, that’s the most important thing. 

I sit on my bed with her sixth birthday coming up soon and I wish I felt any sort of peace. I try to pull the magic peacefulness from that moment and some others that I can remember over the years - but I think to avoid contamination, those moments are locked away from me right now. They know that I would suck that peace out for my current needs, and that’s not what I’m supposed to be feeling right now. I haven’t earned the peace yet, or again. 

Currently I feel: devastated, numb, overwhelmed, confused, heartbroken, actual physical pain in my chest, hunger for what I want, but mainly defeated. I have written down all the “problems” I currently have, everything that I have to, need to or should do something about it. I spiral every time I try to do anything about any of them. I’m a good planner and project manager, my brain works well at looking at the problem, coming up with the “best” solution rather quickly, and then developing the plan of action to get to where it needs to be. Even if it’s a long term goal, I’m able to write out the plan and start with the small steps. 

But

I’ve recently figured out just how broken I am as a human being. My brain handles things in ways I wish it didn’t. I can’t seem to regulate my emotions on a day to day basis. I am extremely suicidal. I can’t seem to get ahead of things financially, or even just close to caught up. I have very limited self control right now. I can’t prioritize anything. I genuinely feel like giving up, but can’t even figure out how to actually do that. 

Love. 

With all this constant in a state of deep diving into my own brain, I have realized that I need Love. We all do, of course, but my lack of having it almost my entire life has come to a head I think. It’s so incredibly difficult to keep pouring love into my children, dogs, businesses, random people I come across - and be as empty as I am. I keep replaying the last 6 years in my head throughout the days and even dreams of it at night. I started off writing this piece with the expectation that I’d be listing out all the ways that I needed to receive love. But now I’m wondering if it’s even worth the mental load of doing that. Love languages have become something that people discuss in recent years, and I think that’s amazing. We have all adapted enough to realize that not everyone, even with the best intentions, can love you the way you need without any direction. Communication really is the best part of any relationship, and being able to talk to the one you love about what you need openly, is probably where peace lives. 

Like any marriage, we tried some days, and we didn’t try other days. Some days you put the effort in, and when it’s not matched you feel like “why in the fuck did I even try?”. Some days you both are putting the effort in and it feels so good it’s fake. Often times though, I believe we both were showing up in ways we thought we were needed, and it’s actually not what the other needed at all. In the mix of our own mental illnesses, trauma’s from previous lives, parenthood, selfishness, other things feeling more important in the moment - we failed each other.

All of this has been to say, that at this moment, I don’t know how to move forward. I’m waking up each day and doing the motions, I’m showing up as a parent in all the ways I want to be for them, I’m plugging away at two businesses - one I should of given up years ago, and one that I’ve gotta put four more years into at least. And I just want to be taken care of, for what feels like, the first time in my life. I want someone who listens to me, to hold my hand in life, to lean on at concerts, to do dinners and breakfasts’ with during the week, to climb into the shower and hold me during panic attacks even fully clothed, to help me mourn the childhood I’m reliving in my head, to just put music on and rub my back when I’m crying and there’s just no real physical fix, to take my shit seriously when you see it’s serious to me, to help me stay on a routine because you also see how bad my mental health needs it, to not make me feel like a piece of shit for letting things get behind - and helping me side by side, someone who shows the girls what they should look for in someone else romantically, someone who treats me like their best friend, and someone who washes my new tattoos for me.