mother hunger

each year, as mother’s day approaches, I find myself experiencing some mix of dread, anxiety, and avoidance. for the 10 mother’s days between when my mom died and when I became a mother, this holiday would throw me into a full-blown tailspin. it’s nearly impossible to avoid grief when every commercial is reminding you of a fact you’d rather avoid - your mother is dead.

once I had my own children, mother’s day became an easier pill to swallow. it could be a celebration of my motherhood. I could focus on what I had rather than what I lacked. and this kind of worked.

last year we planted a garden. in honor of my mom and the mother in me. but this was really the first time I’ve done anything truly in her honor or memory.

I have never been good at ceremony. for many people I know it seems to come naturally for them to celebrate the milestones. the missed birthdays. the anniversary of a loved one’s death. my parents were both died in the months they were born. which never occurred to me until right now. I have mostly tried to bury my head in the sand these days and pretend nothing is happening.

in recent years, through my own therapy and reparenting process, I’ve tried to allow feelings of longing. I first uncovered these feelings a few years ago while working with a coach. when she suggested I read mother’s who can’t love, I was at first very protective of my own mother. I grew up in a family system where criticizing your parents was not tolerated, and speaking negatively/opening about our family life was definitely not allowed. lots of secrets.

but reading this book helped me start facing the truth of my childhood. I am someone who learned to take care of myself physically and emotionally from a very young age. which has given me some of my “superpowers” - such as resilience. but I am self-reliant (to a fault) partly due to not getting my needs met as a child. the neglect was the result of a mix of narcissism (dad), stress/grief (mom), and alcoholism (both).

my longing for nurturing is a feeling I never let myself acknowledge. I just stuffed that emptiness with achievement, busyness, alcohol, and sex.

becoming a loving mother is something I have had to do without a model. I have pictures and ideas of what it looks like from my husband’s family and from friends’ moms. tucking grace into bed used to be the most activating part of my day. I have no memory of ever being lovingly tucked into my bed as a child. when I was postpartum, chris’ mom once cut me a bowl of strawberries that brought me to tears. no one had ever cut fruit for me.

in this major transition in my life I have found myself clueless about how to nourish myself. my hormones are changing. my nutritional needs really matter in how I fuel my body in this season. I grew up making my own eggo waffles for breakfast (or pop tarts), microwaving a potato or nachos or ramen for myself after school, eating school lunch. generally having no idea what eating healthy looked like. I’m a millennial who grew up in the age of diet culture so of course I know how to diet. how to nourish myself though…a different story.

instead of letting myself feel clueless, or allowing shame, my wisest self recently led me to ask for help. and when I did, I learned that our relationship to food is closely linked to our relationship to mom. which makes so much sense. and points me to the clues that tell me I have a lot more to heal.

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sharing all this is already incredibly vulnerable, but it feels like the right time to share the introduction to my book with my paid subscribers.

the book is called “I love you all the time”. though it is a book for my children, grace and parker, maybe it will mean something to someone else too…