MY FIRST LOVE
A few days ago I was asked to share a story about my first love for a galantine party.
The first and most obvious choice, was my husband, whom I met at age 15 and have been married to for 30 years.
Thanks to Adam Grant, or maybe I just had a few extra minutes that morning to ponder, so often I react quickly, and treat my answers like tasks, a to do list, that needs to be completed as quickly as possible. But not this time. I took off the lid and looked inside.
Yes, look inside.
Love is love as they say, and there are many types. We so love to define it as the relationship between lovers, or maybe that is just consumerism talking, but in our hearts, we know that love has no boundaries and even a tree can be the object of a deep love. I recently cried when a gardener cut my beloved tree into a stump.
Love has many definitions and cannot be contained. Even Oxford shares that it is a verb, but also a noun. An action or a person, place, or thing. Love cannot be controlled and when we try, the opposite of love will appear, bringing us to our knees in despair. But balance, a universal law, always prevails.
Brushing my hair that morning, I searched for that first spark, telling my brain to purposely not go the romantic route, but to the feeling of deep affection. I immediately thought of all my dogs, each one representing a real love unlike any you can have with a human. A deep understanding of me and a guardianship I so rarely had in my life. My collection of stuffed animals could easily be my first love, their stuffing coming out from all the nights I held them tight for protection.
As I dug deeper, I looked at my brother and sisters, whom I did not know until recently, were too recent. My first brother and sister relationships were my cousins I grew up with, many cousins, and what a special love that is. A familial friendship and bond of experiences only they would understand.
But my first love, my very first?
Well, I realized that was my mom.
The archetypes society has placed on mothers and women really pollutes this concept of birth mother. Of course, our own matured brains play a part in this perception too, but I guarantee when you came out, and if you were held by her, you felt an intense love for your mother. Even if it wasn’t reciprocated.
Tears are falling from my eyes at the thought of those who were not held by their mom. The pure beauty and love of a baby for its mother, and to not get it, is simply devastating. It is a love unlike any other, and yet this planet cruelly teaches us so very often that nothing is permanent. That in an instant, a heartbeat, that love can change. This world of ours is a school, we each come here with our own lessons and experiences to have. It can be excruciating.
Like most, you might have had the traditional birth. Where you were taken from your mother in minutes. To have shots, or even worse your foreskin removed. Or maybe there was an emergency, your mom was operated on, had to be sedated or worse. Or maybe you had to immediately go to ICU. My Grandmother was knocked out for all of her children’s births in the 1940s.
Many things can happen in the birthing experience that unconsciously change our relationship to our mothers.
I do not know anything about my birth experience from my mom’s view, her body died 4 years ago, and I didn’t have this question until now. I would be interested to know her side of it and how it went for her. It was 1969, she could have been sedated – I know she had a rare blood type and maybe that played a part. I really don’t know. But I wonder. I wonder how it may have formed our relationship.
My mom was the kind of person you always wanted to be around. I could never spend enough time with her, and the time I did get never felt like enough. I do not remember her cooking or decorating skills or packing my favorite lunch. For the most part I did that. She went to work and came home exhausted, and I made her dinner. I may not have had the traditional mom, but she was always appreciative, thankful, and loving.
It just wasn’t enough time.
As I got older our relationship changed, as it should. I fell out of love with my mom when I was 15. We broke up and it wasn’t mutual. I don’t think one ever truly loses all the love for someone they loved; it just gets packed away for storage until you are able to look at it and appreciate it again. I was an independent, defiant teenager, dating a man much older than I should, my mom had no time or help to parent me. Every deep resentment of what she didn’t give me came up without my control. I had no capacity to see her as the human she was, who tried her best, who loved me. I just saw the love I never got. I think we all do this in one way or another in our teenage years. It was heartbreaking and I broke her heart into a million pieces.
At about the age of 21, I came to my senses. I was able to see my unfairness and I apologized for my cruel actions. I am grateful that the rest of our years together on this planet we were friends. We did not always see eye to eye, but our bond stood strong. I am also grateful I was able to make those amends to her, which still bring me shame, but also a forgiveness to that person I was and the hurt they felt.
We all will feel pain from our mothers, intentionally or unintentionally and I would say this pain is not for our moms to heal, it is there for us to heal ourselves. The painful responsibility belonging to the mother is knowing that the child will one day hate them in order to leave them. I do not think any mother escapes this, the only difference is many will be wise enough to see it for what it is. The ending of the first love – that maternal love - that must happen for the child to become an adult.
This morning my son, almost 17, broke my heart. He broke it the day before and will break it again. I can see what he is doing, and I am trying my best to embrace this natural step into adulthood. It hurts a lot more on this side. I believe that a teen’s anger, combined with the will of who you want to become, creates a shield around your heart, nearly impenetrable, from hurtful words exchanged. The knowing that you will soon be leaving the nest and that feeling your parents are willingly pushing you out of the nest (even though you know it must happen) makes you even more of a warrior.
Another rule of the universe, the pendulum always swings back.
I wonder if my mom ever knew how much I loved her. I wonder if any mom knows. I wonder if she loved me as much as I love my son, and if she did, why I never felt that. I wonder which is greater, the love of a mother or the love of a child?
Perhaps Rumi says it best “We are born of love; love is our mother.”
In love + wellness -
Christine