The Art of Story Telling: The $175 Lesson

Disclaimer: Im writing this on my phone, so bear with me thru any typos and weird spacing...

Although, Im not telling a make believe story, Im oftentimes amazed at how vividly I remember some of the darkest days of my life...

This past Friday I was suppose to go on a women's retreat with the women in my church. I couldn't wait to go, a mere hour away, to take me away to serene beautiful location away from the city and madness to a place filled with prayer and deliverance... oh... I was fully ready and expecting being delivered of some stuff as well as maintaining the deliverance I've already received...

Back when I paid my $175 for this trip, for whatever reason I thought MiniMe was getting out of school on this past Friday and the plan was for her father to pick her up from school that day as I made my way out of town. Well those plans fell thru last week when I found out MiniMe doesn't get out of school for another week. For a week, I desperately searched for someone to watch her... everyone had plans or simply said no... finally a break when 2 girls whom she loves said they would do it... but that too fell thru... then my brother in Christ asked his Mom and she said yes... this is almost at the final hour of me leaving... Soooo I tell MiniMe of the new plans and she had a fit...

Right there at the train station...

She didn't want to go with my friend's mom... she really didn't know her that well... and she was like noooooo Mommy... I don't wanna go!! this is my last weekend home before i leave for 3 WHOLE months and I want to spend it with you! So Im like u wasn't concerned with this being your last weekend when u thought u were going with the girls so what gives??? She said at least I know I was going to have fun! But how can u leave me with someone I don't know my last weekend home? And she just cried her lil heart out... and at that moment I felt sooooo selfish and guilty... I was putting my wants before hers just so I can go on this lil trip... I was filled with guilt, feeling self centered and selfish, and most importantly... empathy... and at that time I couldn't place where the feelings of empathy were coming from...

So I called the person I was riding with and told them to go ahead without me... Im not going...

This disappoint I felt was horrific... just soooooo mad at myself... mad for mixing up the dates, mad for wanting to push her off on someone just so I can go... the feeling was indescribable... more like a deep sense of loss... couple with this severe sense of empathy... i just wanted to go away if only for a weekend...that really wasnt alot to ask for yanno??

So I kept looking for the answer to that empathy feeling and that led me to a long forgotten memory...

When I was 9... my aunt committed suicide... my mother shut down for years after that. A few months to a year or so after my aunt's death.... I was home with my mother and she had an incredible sense of calm in her face... she told me very calmly that she was going out for beer and cigarettes and she will be right back. Nothing unusual, but something definitely felt odd... an hour passed... and then another... and then another... sometime during that time my mother's boyfriend came home... inquired to where she was, I told him and that was that...

Hours passed and I went to him and said she has been gone a mighty long time so he went to look for her...

He found her in her car passed out. Apparently she had gotten her beer and cigarettes. She had also planned out her suicide by placing a towel in the exhaust, starting the car and drank till she passed out hoping and expecting the carbon monoxide would fill the car and she would die quietly in her sleep. Little did she know that when she started the car, the power engine to the old green Plymouth Duster would blow the towel clean out of the exhaust pipe.

She was ever so thoughtful to have written a suicide letter to which she proclaimed her love for her boyfriend and her aunt and for someone to please take care of her 2 cats. No mention of me anywhere in that letter.

Suicide is an extremely selfish act. The destruction it leaves within a family is indescribable. I shudder in remembrance of just how selfish she was and still sometimes is...

I remember feeling worthless... I wasn't worthy enough to be mentioned in a suicide letter. I remember feeling incredibly unloved... that she didn't love me enough to ask someone to look out for me... she loved those 2 blasted cats enough, but not me. She took for granted that someone would feel obligated enough to burden themselves with me... not because they may have wanted to but because they would've felt obligated.. and although their (whoever they would have been) intentions may have been good... chances are I would've felt the burden I wouldve been to that person.

As I remembered this bit of horrific history... I thought of the look of horrow and sense of urgency in my daughter's face. She wanted to know did I love her enough and did I think she was worth me cancelling my trip for and the answer is yes Daughter, you are worth way more than my trip, I love u more than enough to not go for your sake...

Im often very hard on myself concerning how Im raising MiniMe.. always very fearful and mindful of being like my mother. My mother would've packed me up and sent me off despite my protest. She was just that selfish for every and anything always came before me. Its never the physical abuse I remember from my mother, but always the psychological and emotional abuse. Thats what stays with me. Thats what haunts me, even now. Although I have long forgiven her from my heart, and oftentimes yearn to forget those painful memories, sometimes I need the reminder of what not to be.

we had our weekend together and she enjoyed herself immensely... for which im glad... she will have this memor for a lifetime.

Sometimes, i want something that is just about me. I dont have birthday celebrations, Im not married nor in a relatonship and Im fine with that. i just wanted this simple lil getaway... but that too is ok. One day, it wont mean everything to me to go away and have a little time just for myself because it will one day be the rule and not the exception.

I oftentimes am envious when i see mothers & dabughters who have close relationships cuz I so wish I had that with my mother. but instead of being upset, i know without a doubt that i make sure my relationship with MiniMe never turns south. for all of u who have loving relationships with your mother, be forever thankful.

"We can make our plans but the Lord will determine our steps." Proverbs 16:9

It costed me $175 to learn that No, Im not like my mother... not even a little bit.

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