I’m going to do something a little different today and make a journal entry. This week has been difficult for me. My ex’s mom is in town staying with us which has been stressful to navigate. Before my ex and I broke up, his mom was always nice and welcoming to me. Since the break up about a year ago, things just feel off… My anxieties and tensions due to mother’s day coming up have been contributing to me crying a lot this week, so I figured I should try and write down all that is going through my head

My mom passed away about a year and a half ago. When she was alive, we had a very rocky relationship. The concept of “loving mom’s” and “doing things with your mom” being shoved in my face all day has got me feeling a lot of emotions.

I am feeling jealous of my ex. It brings up a lot of anger in me to see him hanging out with his mom and his mom willing to do anything for him at a drop of a hat. It makes me feel like a loser in a way, that things couldn’t have been that easy with my mom and me. It makes me feel defective as a daughter.

I am feeling resentful that there is this idyllic image of what a mom is and that my mom wasn’t that to me. Sometimes my mom was extremely cruel to me and really neglected me. There is a lot of nuance to our relationship. I have to do real mental work to not only care for myself but also to see my mom as a flawed human who loved me. It’s always been really difficult for me to accept that my mom loved me, because the things she would do to me would be so vicious.

At the same time, I am missing my mom and the times that that we had in the calm. I am grieving for the life that she had to live and for her many struggles. I am in awe of all that she was able to achieve and of her beauty.

It pisses me off that we have this whole holiday around moms, because not everyone has a mom or a mom that is safe. It feels like like crying at a party where everyone is celebrating around you. There is a total disconnect from all the happy faces.

I’ve never made an ofrenda before, but I think I am going to try today. I haven’t connected to my mom’s memory in a couple of months. I got a box of her things out of storage and I’m going to display them with some lit candles on her behalf.

TLDR; I am sad. I am mad. I am grieving.