MIRROR, MIRROR (MOTHERING THROUGH A WATERY LENS)

 

All photos in this post are from in or near Acadia National Park, Summer 2025

Everyone has a mother

although not everyone has been mothered

or has had the opportunity to know their mother.

Mother is both a noun and a verb,

a theme and a meme,

a cultural norm,

weaponized aspiration,

and part one of a classic swear.

Everyone,

and I mean EVERYONE

has opinions about mothering that 

they base around their own experience

with one or more people who

mothered (or attempted to mother) them.

Mother.  Momma.  Mom.

It's more than teacher or parent.

Mother is the giver of life, the foundation for

how we learn to be loved and give love,

and for female folks, the first mirror

we hold for what it looks like to be a person.

*****

Last week I was putting on mascara

and

(as one does)

 I stabbed myself accidentally in the eye.

As I reached for a tissue, I happened to glance in the mirror.

For just one brief millisecond

my whole being thought the 

person staring back at me

was my mother,

laughing sarcastically at my clumsiness.

I could almost hear her-

Good one, Grace!

or maybe I said it out loud.

Even all these years later, it can

be difficult to distinguish her echo 

from my own voice in unguarded moments.

For almost two decades, there

was no space between my mother and I-

no (allowable) difference between

what she wanted and what I needed.

My cells were hers and her cells were mine.

It of course began that way in utero

but our interwoven co-dependence

persisted right through early adulthood.

I was at her service, 

laying all my offerings at the altar 

of her care, her pride, her protection.

I could have stayed committed,

to that idol for my entire life if I abided by the tenants 

of my family faith.

But I'm a sinner and so I rebelled.

Somewhere in the shift from girl to woman,

I drew a line between myself

and my mother that meant we each

had to choose how to move forward

as individuals-not as one.

I have learned since that this is a natural part

of growing up-this separation.

But my rebellion was not a partial tear

followed by repair and recriminations, hugs and new understanding.

It was a refusal to bow at an altar of abuse

and dysfunction in service of her title.  

It was an insistence that I was allowed

to exist, separate from her, not a mirror.

I shifted the lens and said

You can have some of me but you cannot have all of me.

I am my own and I get to choose what to give you.

Some of anyone was never going to be 

even close to enough.

She has always demanded all or nothing.

I don't remember the last time my skin touched

my mother's skin.

I expect to never share space or time

with her in this iteration of life.

The last time I shared physical space with my mother

was several years past the original line in the sand.

We had been apart but not completely severed,

I was exiled but not fully shunned.

In just the right light, we could pretend

for brief moments that I was still

primarily a reflection of her.

It was easier on both of us for a while.

Until she asked for a favor that turned into 

another, much deeper crack.

Couldn't my youngest brother go to live with someone else?

Just for a little while until she got out of trouble?

He wasn't safe in the house with her lover.

Nevermind that he'd never been safe with her.

Safety for others only mattered when she could no longer

receive the offering of respectability that mother's a due.

We had always done things in the dark

traded shame like cards.

This time, we did it in the cold afternoon light

of an Alamance County courtroom.

I wrote a letter of support

to explain why I recommended the transfer of custody.

It was barely a page, a clear outline that spared

a lot of detail that even now, no one can bear to claim.

It was filled with lines I

knew I should never cross as her reflection.

I sat in that courtroom while she was led to the front.

The judge asked if she wanted to dispute any of the content.

She declined with hushed honey tones

and then he agreed....that the lines I drew should stand

for more than just me.

We had one brief interaction that day,

intense eye contact that was broken when one of us

(I don't remember which)

looked away.

The last conversation I shared with my mother

was when my son was five and my daughter was an infant.

She had been sending gifts to my children through Andy

and when I found out, 

I popped off at the mouth.

If our mother wanted to talk to me

she should call me herself I said.

What I meant was that she was using him.

What I wanted her to hear was that she should leave me alone

and find someone easier to prey on.

I did not actually mean she should call me but of 

course that is what she did.

She scolded me when I asked who 

was on the other end of the line.

It's your mother for Christ's sake.  Who else would it be?

As if we had seen each other just last week

instead of the better part of a decade.

I guess when a god calls you direct, she expects caller ID to be unnecessary.

There was no visual impact but the shape

of her arguments, the cadence of her heartbeat,

and the insistence of her need was loud.

During the next sixty minutes

she tried again to shape me into a something flat and reflective.

The lines I drew had been reinforced though-

by my own blood bound up in other little souls,

by my own rhythm, no longer drowned out by hers,

and by space in which to build that memory.

I am mine (but I am also theirs)

so I cannot ever be only hers again.

In fractured stops and starts

it became clear that 

she wanted something, maybe several somethings.

I wouldn't pretend that we had 

nothing between us that needed repair.

I wouldn't play along with the frame she kept 

trying to wrap around me.

When I put up a clear line of inquiry

What do you want?

She picked up my cadence, direct and clear for once.

Fix this mess-but do it my way.

I declined.

She crescendoed according to all the rules

I remembered from my home training.

Deny, deflect, distract.

And when that fails, threaten.

I said go ahead, bring it.

You only see my surface but

I am water, deep and strong.  

She looked away.

It's been decades

since we've interacted directly.

I know she's still alive because

my siblings occassionally give me reports. 

Sometimes at her direction

(I can still feel the cadence)

and sometimes while they process their own lines

of demarcation or

deconstruct their own altars.

Knowing the tide still pulls is comforting,

catching glimpses of her in the mirror is

reassuring, hearing the timbre of her

voice in my own is a touchstone.

I am so grateful for her.

I love my mother.

I always will.

*******************

Loving her has taught me more about compassion

and grace and redemption than most

of my easier relationships.

Learning to love her as a separate entity,

to forgive her the damage done to her reflection in me

 has given me a deep well

of self-love, regulation and generosity.

My own daughter is a force of living water

sometimes serene on the surface

but also vibrant, alive, and changing.

She's like me but not.

She began in me but she has already

become something unique and beautifully distinct.

One day she'll hear my voice from her own mouth,

see my face in a piece of glass

and I hope feel as much joy

from knowing her mother still lives 

in her as I do when that happens to me.

My mother gave me the experience that I needed to have.

She was a catalyst to get help so that I could create a new story.

I am so grateful for this wisdom.

I love my mother.

I always will.

If you listen to our shared culture,

what I did in breaking that connection was 

terrible, unthinkable-a desecration.

No one asks what made that separation 

the only possible choice.

Most project their own experience with the

deep well of love they tapped into

with their mother

and assume that the child is 

being petty, willful or spiteful.

In cases like mine,

the only way I could continue to love my mother

was to separate, to choose myself.

I had tried (and watched many many other beloved people)

to find a middle ground and failed.

I was almost never a child so I learned at an early age

that I needed to do the work of mothering for her 

and my siblings.

Once I turned those skills on myself, I realized that 

the girl I was needed a mother too.

One who would do the hard thing the child needs

even if the mother will be heartbroken forever because of it.

I thank her every day for teaching me how to be selfish

because it saved my life.

I love my mother.

I always will.

I can't tell you the number of times

someone has said:  Your mom must be so proud of you.

Many people who love me and met me after

dissolution of this core relationship

think that my mother is either deceased

or that she must live

in some remote, exotic location.

It is unthinkable to them that I would be 

so disobedient as to fail to honor my mother

in the way they understand that directive.

I rarely get into this with people

anymore unless we are going to

spend significant time together.  

It's so discordant with what they want to believe

-about mothers, about me, about her.

I don't like to ruin people's world view

or expose them to how fragile their deeply held beliefs are.

There's plenty of overly simplistic examples on 

the 24-hour news cycle of how we continue to 

fail to see each other, love each other,

support each other.

I save the deeper dives for those who reach out

for real connection, not grounded in pride

or fairytales that elevate heroes and burn

villains at the stake.

I've come to learn that there are many of us

that have had to make that decision to separate

and many of us bear the shame of disconnection

from peers, family or community.

If you are one of these children-I mostly want

you to know that you aren't alone.

There are even more of us as the tide of MAGA

and MAHA and white supremacy and Christian Nationalism

infect even beautiful souls with something

that is anathema to connection.

And if you're feeling alone, 

I would like to share that there is healing and wholeness

that exists when we remember the living water

that our mothers (even the imperfect or missing or lost ones)

give us as we are born into this iteration.

Our hearts are made to swell, break and then swell again.

It's our super-power and we can find the way back.

Thank goodness for mothers.

I love my mother.

I always will.

YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR YOUR ENERGY (GIFTS OF TEENAGERS)

 Between working with our youth group and moonlighting

at a coffee shop, I've spent an inordinate amount of time with

teenagers this year.  

I love teenagers.  Really.

Like toddlers, they remind us of the magic and intensity

that is always surrounding us but that we've learned to ignore.

Everything old is new again,

we get to relive and reimagine our first semi-adult choices

through the lens of their fresh perspective

including our fashion, music and slang.

Teenagers get a bad rap and one of the reasons is that

they reflect our weaknesses back at us  

through an emotional megaphone.

They're are feeling everything and sharing some portion

of that intensity with their words, actions, and facial expressions.

Of course, adults experience all the emotions that teens do

but most of us have learned to shut up about it.

No one needs to hear all that even if it's screaming as loudly

inside our heads as it is in the teenagers.

Right?

Art made by my daughter (Trashpanda with a duck)

Don't think so?

I guarantee you have intrusive thoughts running around

inside your head during most of your waking hours.

Let's see if I can remind you.....

Are your jeans fitting well after the holidays?

How about your arms-bingo wings tight or flying free?

Maybe it's your hair (or lack there of) that sparks your insecurity.

How about the future?  Worried about your 401(k) performance

or the stability of your industry or 

whether your boss thinks you're a slacker?

How did navigating the holidays go 

with your family of origin?  

I'm sure one or all of those reminded you that

even though you're an adult,

you're not impervious to insecurity. 

After all, we're all human, with brains designed

to prioritize negative thoughts so it's

practically impossible to remove them.

Most of us adults don't voice this never ending litany

of anxieties out into the world.

It's just not acceptable behavior to move through the world

verbally cataloguing every feeling or emotion,

reacting like a pinball on the events of our lives.

But being with so many teenagers has reminded me

that a lot of us could use a refresher on effective and ineffective 

ways to manage these thoughts.

Teens say it out loud with words but a lot of adults

are still letting their anxiety seep out

sideways in moments where they think it doesn't matter.

If you're someone who is absolutely triggered

by teenagers and all their loud feelings

or reactive nature,

I would like to suggest that you might 

need this lesson too.

After all, the keys to the lessons we need are 

often in the things that frustrate us.

What am I talking about?

I'm talking about how many adults I interact with who are practically

suffocating themselves with inauthentic behavior

or lack of presence in the real world.

How do I know?

Oh honey.  It's so obvious when someone

is struggling, it's barely less noticeable than teen angst.

I bet you know too.

When the script doesn't follow the expected path,

when the car won't start or the washing machine leaks

or the waitress got your order wrong or 

your colleague asked you that question you'd outlined

in three previous emails...how do you feel?

I'm going to bet you feel frustrated or disoriented

but I'm also going to bet that sometimes you shove that down

and wait for it to leak out into venting with your best friend

or the silent car ride to work.

A few of you might be actually taking it all out on strangers,

blaming them for confusing you with harsh words under your breath

or vicious glares as you pass by them

or having righteous tantrums in the comments/review section of that business.

I get it.

I do it too.

Many of us learned to shove these thoughts down,

to lower the volume externally

and leave the gremlins to do whatever damage they want

to do in the protected prison of our minds.

Instead of healthy reframing, we learned performance.

Instead of direct communication, we learned to appease.

Instead of saying what we need, we learned to avoid.

Instead of navigating conflict, we learned to bully or complain.

This can be a fine short term strategy but it 

ultimately lets you (and those you are around)

down in the long run.

There's a better way to move through the world

but it requires good boundaries

and a rested soul to pull it off.

Here's the basic idea:

You are responsible for your energy.

You.

No one else.

You decide (or fail to decide) how you're going to show up.

It's a choice.

It's 100% on you no matter what excuses or

circumstances or trauma or triggers

or other people's bad behavior you encounter.

One of my favorite teachers, Laura McKowen

has a great set of phrases to remind us that it's not our fault

but it is our responsibility that you can find here.

Last time I saw my car before the great wait for parts 2022 (and 2023)

This feels obvious right?

Most adults will admit on the surface that of course

they are responsible for their actions but few

of us actually think about the energy we're bringing to 

those actions or how they might ripple into the world.

It can get hard in the chaos and relentless tempo

of this world we live in to remember to choose.

We remember to behave (which just means to perform)

in the stable moments that go as we expect.

We know our lines.

We hit our marks, do as expected and we call that success.

Owning your energy is a different level

that is clear and tangible to other humans

whether we want to admit it or not.

I guarantee you know if someone is authentically

present with you in an interaction

or if they are acting.

You are probably just too polite to call them on it.

And you might be hoping that no one calls you on it either.

Have you heard T-swifty's latest album?  There are some gems there.

I'm aware that even bringing this up sounds both smug

and a little too woo-woo for many of you.

As a teen, I learned to behave a certain way and that behavior

 is the most important thing for an adult to have.

I am an excellent performer

and I thought for many years that 

the performance was more than enough for this thing called life.

Even now, after working on #quitting this fakery,

I have a gazillion moments a week where 

my attitude threatens to run away with my intentions

and I find myself acting instead of actually meaning it.

I have to work on choosing my energy

daily.  Sometimes hourly.

Anybody else feel that way?

Want to stop?

Everything is better when you're authentic,

even if it's not perfect or instagramable.

Our washer recently broke and leaked this onto our downstairs ceiling.  If you're not laughing, we probably can't be friends in real life.

Which brings me back to what incredible teachers teenagers 

are for us adults.

Because they look like adults instead of big-eyed

adorable puppies anymore, we tend to 

 forget that they actually aren't mature yet.

Teens are drowning in hormones, growing and changing

in front of our eyes so fast it can be painful.

They get hungry, tired, and overwhelmed 

with the same predictability of any toddler.

When they reach their breaking point, they need to be hugged,

need to eat and rest and play a bit before they can 

do anything too serious again.

Their expressions of frustration or exuberance

are opportunities to remind us what it looks like

to be healthy, not just behave as if we are.

That the choices they make will impact our reality.

That there are better options than simply behaving

but that it requires intention and support.

Because as much as we'd like to deny it,

adults need all those things too in order to show up fully.

My dog Curry hiding out from the teens in our life.

Adulting is super hard-

because we are responsible for our own damn selves.

And when we aren't, there are consequences

the ripple past our own lives.

Barking at your children or your spouse

for little minutiae will bubble around your house

just like a bad stomach bug.

Biting off that waitress' head for a mistake

instead of asking for a remedy will get passed along to the next

exhausted, poorly supported person in her path.

Yelling at the car in front of you the whole way to work

will probably take minutes to dissipate once you reach your destination.

Minutes where you try to greet your colleagues with something

that doesn't come close to matching actual friendliness

even though you are 'behaving' by saying all the usual things.

That energy will roll out into the world

until someone chooses to hold a boundary with it.

That person should be you.

Choose your energy.

Choose your behavior.

If you can't align your energy and your behavior

then take a walk,

have a snack,

or a nap.

Once you're centered, take a deep breath and decide

how you're going to move in the world.

Intentionally.

My favorite teenagers cooking waffles on Christmas morning.

SCHEDULE SITUATION (FREEDOM FEARS)

Almost a year ago, I was discussing my intention 

to leave my employer with my therapist during a session.

She asked me what I was planning to do in the weeks 

immediately following my end date.  

I told her I thought I'd get a job at a local garden center and just spend some time watering plants and soaking in the sun.

She gently reminded me of some things that I'd already told her 

regarding this upcoming change.

I didn't really need the money, I had saved enough to take a 

break for a good long time without much risk financially.

I already work in several gardens around town including my own yard 

so I had access to plants, sun, and water without the garden center.

I was burnt out and exhausted, physically and mentally drained in a way

that made it hard to recognize myself anymore.

What was my reason for rushing to put myself on a timeline again?

What was behind my desire to be once again tied to someone else's schedule?

Therapists are very annoying which is why they are so valuable.

Like usual, my therapist had managed to hone in on exactly the thing that I wasn't willing or able to see inside my own little head.

Quitting my job was fine.

Not having a plan for the future was fine.

Spending time focused on myself was fine.

Exercise and eating right and trying to figure out how to sleep again was fine.

A wide open calendar free of expectation was NOT FINE.

Not even a little tiny bit.

Space that does not need filling

Like, I started to sweat when I thought about how open ended

and available my time would be for the forseeable future.

It wasn't just anxiety or a mild form of unease.

It teetered on the edge of panic; sweaty palms, racing heart

preparing for the worst possible kind of threat.

What the hell right?

Who feels terrible because they have free time?

<clears throat>

Apparently me.

It took me a couple of days to get still and focused 

enough to understand what was happening.

This was obviously a trigger. I've had a lot of experience

exploring those and figuring out what to do with them

so I know how to dig in when they start popping off.

Ultimately I determined that I was scared that 

no one was expecting me to show up somewhere.

If I didn't have an appointment outside of my house

then no one would be aware that something was off with me.

I've said this before but since it's one of the central themes

of my character development, you'll get to hear it at least a few more times.

My over-acheivement and performance habits were developed

as a response to the abusive system of my family of origin.

I was smart, driven and capable because I was rewarded to be that.

It was how I found love and acceptance

AND

it was how I got away from my abusers.

There were two ways to get out of the house when I was young.

Work and school.

Both highly schedule driven.

Both tightly commitment bound.

I spent as many hours at school as I was allowed

and then when I was almost 14, I started working in restaurants.

That was very young to start working

but I would have fought you tooth and nail if you tried to make me stop.

Work was freedom, safety and access.  

Hillary McBride will walk you home.

If I was scheduled to be at school or work, then someone was expecting me.

If I showed up at either of those places visibly unwell,

then there would be consequences and questions.

I was never safe in the confines of my house.

I was never free or able to trust the motivations of those around me.

Life was unpredictable there and I did everything I could do to get out.

My life got much better once I started working and

by the time I was sixteen I was working full time while going to school.

The money I made meant I had access to things like food,

clothing and opportunities that I wouldn't have had without my own income.

I was very successful at this kind of multi-tasking.

My life depended on it (and so did a few other people's)

so even my abusers encouraged that outlet.

So I learned to stack my schedule with as many 'outside of the house'

things as I could possibly fit into a day.

A full schedule meant freedom and safety to teenage me.

There are a lot of things about the human maturation 

process that feel real dumb once you have a little experience with them.

I'm starting to think the definition of a mid-life crisis is refusing to deal

with your childhood wiring in an effective way.

 Those that learn to parent themselves, come out ok in their fifties.

Those that can't learn to parent themselves, 

look like a citrus fruit wearing a bad tupee.

#sorrynotsorry #roevemberiscoming

I've had to do quite a bit of rewiring this wrongly plumbed idea.

A packed schedule did actually mean freedom and safety for me

for about a decade of my life.

However, it doesn't mean that anymore and hasn't meant it 

for about two decades now.

I've created a life of safety and security.

I don't need to run away from home anymore.

I made myself safe finally.

Finally.

But my body didn't know that and 

was having a hard time accepting it.

When we need our body to accept things, we often

have to actually DO them so the body can experience the opposite

reaction and get used to it as a positive experience.

Remember, your body also has to learn to tolerate things that are 

good for you just like you've made it tolerate things that are bad for you.

You can get used to anything.

Even the good things.

Rupi Kaur's book Home Body is gorgeous.

I now have more than six months of experience with a fairly 

open-ended schedule and thankfully, 

it's starting to feel more natural and less scary.

Along with this new perspective on freedom, I've come to 

understand something fundamental that I didn't before.

I need time to take care of myself.

(did you just say duh?  I promise I'm smart in some ways.)

It takes about three hours a day for me to make sure that I am healthy.

Three hours!!!  

Does that seem like a lot to you?

It feels like a LOT to me.

Like who can take a whole three hours away from

all the other needs of the world to take care of themselves?

Except....it does take at least that long.

Sometimes it takes even 

more if I am tryin to thrive 

instead of live my life

like I'm in a combat zone.

I'm working on owning that care as my rightful inheritance

as a beloved child of the Creator because the world 

FOR SURE will not reinforce that for me.

I'm getting there, one long walk and one good night of rest at a time.

View from last week's mid-week grocery walk-10 miles and 25 pounds of groceries are a really good way to spend some workout time.

So what is on my professional schedule for the last few

 months of my year of #quitting?

Thanks for asking.

I've got some things going on that are different

than I would have ever expected six months ago

but I'm really excited about them.

I'll be finishing up my book draft by the end of October and

then I'll move into editing, book proposal drafting, etc.

I am taking on several coaching clients and have space for a couple more.

You can check me out here if you're interested or know someone who might be.

 I think I'm going to try and get a job at a coffee shop 

because I fricking love spending time in them.

I have three other ideas for books including another memoir

and an urban fantasy set in my home state.

I'd like to try and get some short stories published

and get a sense of that industry.

I've got a lot of hiking goals too.  I'm not going to miss

the upclose view to the seasons changing ever again.

Icy cold, sweltering heat, pouring rain, gentle breezes all

remind me I'm alive in a way I'm unwilling to give up.

Just a few things right?

My schedule has space to stretch now

and I can only recognize it as freedom.

Finally.