So I’m still in love with my mother, and I still suffer because I gave everything. I was open-hearted, devoted, attentive, responsive, forever. She, alas, was quite limited. Even today, I feel we were looking at such disparate parts of the elephant that I’ll never be able to grasp how she related.

I did see that she cared most of all about “having a man.” And she cared a lot about appearances, relative levels of power, whether or not she was respected, and her ability to charm (or, perhaps, manipulate).

Whereas I cared about her.

I was at a huge disadvantage. Deep inside, I still feel wounded, a failure, lost, abandoned, and infinitely sad. So where does that leave me today, in matters of the heart? Is that my model forever? Me lonely devoted and begging? I’ve tried everything I know to “move on,” and this is still the default, the substrate.

Today I’m thinking I will never get over it and shouldn’t try. I will sleep and awaken with this sadness and defeat always.

But perhaps if I leave that pillar in place I can add another, so at least it won’t be the only constant in my identity. I’m thinking yes, that is still what “relationship” feels like to me. On the other hand, I tell clients a failed relationship can teach them about themselves: what they liked, what they didn’t, what role they played in how they chose, whether they ignored red flags, what level of tolerance they thought they had for the other person’s flaws, what level of tolerance they really had (or didn’t), and what dream sustained them even when things started to sour. That way they can learn about their part, and do things differently the next round.

Maybe I can apply this kind of review to the ever-hurting wound of relationship with my mother. That was my original relationship (which I didn’t choose); I can learn from it and evolve. Maybe?

As I write this, I realize it doesn’t matter whether I’m in a relationship of the heart or not. Just the fact that I didn’t choose that relationship might relieve some of my sense of responsibility for being in it, for fixing it, for reaching the unreachable Mother.

I think I’ll do both. I’ll duck out of responsibility for that primary relationship, and I’ll look at the way I saw myself in that relationship, with an eye toward revising all those terrible misunderstandings. How I “was” in that damaging relationship isn’t necessarily who I “am.”