A Domani
Have you been putting off till tomorrow what you need to do
today? The Italian phrase “a domani” means idiomatically, until tomorrow or see
you tomorrow. For some reason I have had a great many people coming to me with
the issue of putting off the inevitable until tomorrow, the next day, the next
year, the next ten years.
I was speaking to a close friend tonight. We shared about
relationships. I told her when I resolved my anxious attachment issue with my
mother, that it seemed my relationships started to become a lot shorter. She
asked me why. I took a long hard look at it. I guess the reason is that I
believed before my understanding about my mother that in my anxiousness to
attach, that I should hold on to relationships that weren’t working harder. Now
when relationships aren’t working, I simply let go.
Perhaps, I just haven’t found the right person yet in my
healthy space, who is also healthy. I may never find that person, and I should
be okay with that. It makes me a little sad to think about that possibility,
but it is a truth that could come to pass.
Most people would think that my clients described in the
first paragraph would be not doing things like projects, work, writing that
novel, quitting a habit. But that isn’t the case. These clients are avoiding
the bigger issues. They are avoiding what I had been avoiding when I broke up
with a partner of three years. I called my mother and asked if I could come
over and be with her because I was sad. She had just moved to Nashville then.
This was about eight years ago.
When I arrived at her apartment, she sat on the couch with
her arms open. I rested in her lap and fell asleep. During my dream, I felt a
quiet assurance that Rob wasn’t the person I was crying over. In fact, none of
the people I had broken up with in my past were really an issue at this point.
The problem was the person comforting me. My mother had left my father when I
was in third grade. If you’ve been keeping up with my blog, you know some of
this story. I didn’t see her again until eleventh grade.
The abandonment and the anxiousness in relationship I
continued to feel was from PTSD from my mother leaving when I was a child. What
I discovered that day was the relationship I needed to work on was my parental
one with my mother.
Mom and I had always gotten along. We never fought or had
any disagreements. Since we returned to communicating and my dad was the bad
guy, my mom was kind of like my hero. But I remember clearly the day my
therapist pointed out to me in a strong, matter-of-fact tone, “Why do you not
hold your mother to blame for any of your anger? She is the one who left you
with an alcoholic, abusive father.”
I never was really able to answer that question, because I experienced
what my mother felt about my father. I wanted to leave him too. Had I had the
courage and the strength, I would have. Had he not stopped her from getting the
children back, we would have been with my mother. But Dad was stronger than Mom
was politically and had more money. Mom lost her children and had to wait until
we were grown enough to realize she wasn’t the bad one in the relationship.
However, that doesn’t change the PTSD I had from losing the
only mother who truly loved and protected me as a child. So, when my sister who
took care of my mother for 20 years moved back to Arizona, my mother asked me
if she could move in with me. It was then I knew that God had provided me with
the perfect opportunity to work out every issue Mom and I had together.
My theory was right. But what is even more interesting is
that my choice to let this move happen has also provided a pathway for my
mother to have healing as well. I love watching her change and evolve and stick
up for me with words like, “I love my son more than life. His friends are my
friends. I have never met a gay person I didn’t like. My son saved my life. I
would be dead if it weren’t for him.”
My mother is in so many ways still my hero. At almost 81 she
still tries her best to learn and to make change, despite a life full of so
many things that could have stopped her from making the best choices. Sometimes
I think she is making these hard changes for me.
I walk into the living room and find her on the sit-up
machine and bouncing on the fitness ball and almost break into tears. Of
course, I never show it. When she moved in with me she was 40 pounds
overweight, her blood sugars were in the 300-400s, and she had heart problems.
She is now at a good weight, managing her sugars so much so that she is taking
the smallest amount of insulin one can take. Most of her doctors tell her to
come back in a year. At her age, that is monumental. And still, on her low
income, she tries to save $50 a month in her Christmas club to get gifts for
the family. All of it kind of amazes me.
So, “a domani” to Mom means a lot more than it means to me.
Tomorrow and the next day seem a lot closer to the end as you get older, and I
guess that makes for clearer and better decisions. I can see that happening in
my life too, even though I’m not quite that old.
* * *
Bo Sebastian is a Hypnotherapist and Life & Health
Coach, available for private sessions to QUIT SMOKING, Lose Weight, New
Lap-Band Hypnosis for Weight Loss, CHANGE YOUR MIND, CHANGE YOUR LIFE! at
615-400-2334 or www.bosebastian.com.
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