Duty, love, and attitude

[Crazy Eddie]

Now I'm wondering just how much that Primal Wound stuff holds water.

Normal kids, even ones who have it much worse than I did, love their moms and desperately miss them when they're gone, from what I hear.

I never missed her. When she was gone, I felt relief. When she was coming back, I felt sadness, anxiety, and a sense of failure. Never did I long for her presence.

I still maintain occasional contact with her mostly out of a sense of obligation and the knowledge that I don't really have a good excuse to cut her out of my life. She has changed, and I shouldn't hold on to the past. But I still don't miss her like normal people do.

As for She Who Cannot Be Named (for the simple reason that I don't know her name), I can't miss her in the usual sense because I don't remember ever meeting her. But not a day goes by that I don't wonder where she is.

This doesn't seem right to me. My mom put a lot of work into raising me and, given my problems and what was known at the time, didn't do all that badly at it. That's got to count for something, right? But deep inside, it's just not the same, even though I wish it could be.

I think she sensed that distance from her own child throughout my childhood and it drove her crazy. She always seemed to want to maintain a deathgrip on me, and I was always trying to hold her at arms length. This had to have been heartbreaking for her and poisoned every interaction we ever had.

Or maybe I'm just making events fit a flawed theory. I wish I knew for sure.

Well, time to go work out. Does wonders for the mental attitude, at least for a day or two. Life goes on, and it can be very sweet when you do it right.