"Rub dirt on it"

My dear friend H lost her miracle twins a week ago (not her first loss). Please visit her blog and give her a hug. She's feeling very alone right now.

H and I email often. She was there for me earlier this year when my world fell apart. She's a strong, wonderful woman. In our recent emails we have been discussing how we deal with loss, with emotional pain. We both are of the "don't show weakness, bottle things up, emotionally 'rub dirt on it' and move on because that's what is need to survive (until we fall apart later under the strain)" camp.

Only lately have I tried to do things differently, want to do things differently. For example, since I got pregnant my mom has been talking to me about how she's going to move down to California from Oregon to retire so she can be a part of her granddaughter's life, even watch her one day a week. She talked about having Friday or Sunday dinner together as a family, along with her sister, my dear aunt, who also lives in my area. It made me so happy to imagine us being physically and emotionally close. She told me that before my grandma died last year she asked her, "Mamma, what is your one regret in life?" and my dear grandma answered, "The only thing I would do differently would have been to live closer to my granddaughter Jem and watch her grow up." We both cried together about this. My heart was filled with hope and love.

Sunday my mom called and told me she "just couldn't afford to move." Now, this is pure rubbish (I'm being polite). She could if she really wanted to. The truth is my mother has always put herself first. Her international travel, her seminars, her expensive hobbies are all more important. 

When I was three my mother decided to leave my dad, for various and valid reasons, including infidelity, and drug use. Unfortunately, this also meant leaving ME with my dad (who was a good father, as good as a stoned hippie in a Berkeley commune can be) to "find herself," which she did in the arms of another guy. 

A year later she wanted me back, but it meant exposing me to abuse and neglect by her crazy, Vietnam-vet-turned-hippie boyfriend (this was the early 70's). I could go into details, but won't. Let's just say it was bad. Not as bad as it could have been, but still bad. I was often sick, hungry, and punished disproportionally to whatever the little three-year-old me might have done (played with matches, for example).

After a year of that insanity, I went back to live with my dad for two years, but only once she actually saw what a horrible physical threat the boyfriend was and got her life together. 

She then started making better choices, but it was always her world and I just lived in it. The minute I could, I moved away (to college) across the country and then afterwards, across the globe. After many years living abroad I was sick of being a foreigner and moved back to the U.S. in 1998. Since then I've done years of therapy to gain my emotional autonomy, gotten married, etc.

So, on Sunday I just sat there on the phone and listened to her whine about how she wanted to but she really couldn't swing it. All I could say was, "I have to go. Bye!" hung up and then went and cried my eyes out on Mr Jem's shoulder. 

I was holding on to naive hope that my mother would actually really be there for me, for her granddaughter, be able to be with her and take care of her on a regular basis. Well, she's not. And will never really be. She's a good woman in so many ways and has changed quite a bit over the years, but not enough. And I have to accept her the way she is.

But it hurts. 

So, do I just 'rub dirt' on this wound, stay silent and "just move on?" How do I do this differently?

How do you deal with loss? Disappointment? Those emotional boo-boos?

 ~Jem