Anyway, at the age of 16, I faced the first consequence. A juvenile hemorrhage for no reason. I was horrified, scared to death and helpless. I couldn’t even ask my mother for help. I was afraid because I did not know how to speak about such issues. My mother has never discussed anything of that kind with me. The little girl in me was lost, ashamed and nearly dying. Hospital, intervention, treatment. I can easily remember that terrible horror I passed through. I also remember that I was so responsible for making my mom feel calmer about my illness, for soothing her tension and fear. In a certain manner I became a mother for my mom, taking responsibility for and care of her emotions and feelings.

It seems that the innocent joke my mom made is one of the deepest wounds I’ve ever had. Frankly speaking, I have heard some from other people too. I still have to closely study what ways I’ve been rejecting my feminine nature. But first I have to identify what that feminine nature is because I don’t really know how it is manifested. This is what I have ahead. But for now I know already that my mother has never talked to me like a woman to a little girl. I don’t remember her hugging or kissing me. There is no single memory in my head of her soothing my emotions, despair and anger or comforting me the way she was supposed to support me emotionally and physically. And I have always needed it so desperately. I was a little girl and there is still that little girl inside of me starving for her mom’s emotional embrace, warmth and intimacy. We have never been that close. There has never been the much needed and important act creating confidence between me and my mother. And unfortunately no intimacy will ever emerge between us. And the reason is that she doesn’t have it inside to share with me. And that makes me overwhelmingly sad. And she is not and cannot become aware of it. And that is my great grief. And I am still grieving the absence of that affection. And I let it happen to ease my tremendous pain.

My pain is not only about not having a mother with her acceptance and unconditional love. It is also about being unable to change her now. It is even impossible to get her to take a look at what she did wrong and make her admit her mistakes, her faults and omissions. I even can’t make her apologize for some obvious abuses I reminded her about. She refuses. She doesn’t want to assume responsibility. And you know what? I know and I do understand her. It is so terribly frightening to have a glimpse at the past and realize how much harm you did to your own beloved child, what kind of influence you had on the life and destiny of your child. It scares. And the fear triggers the resistance. I know it from my own experience of being a mother. This path is not for everybody, but I still blame her. I have not yet accepted that she cannot say, “I’m sorry,” and recognize she wasn’t ideal, and she also did something wrong. I am experiencing now just how lonely and saddening it can be to feel the emotional and psychological absence of my mother, although I know she loves me in her way.

I now understand that there was nothing wrong with me, even if I’ve never thought of myself as worthy, adorable, smart and beautiful just because I am what I am. Now I know I had and still have the right to be a real woman with all my authentic character traits and manifestations, that it was my mother who was unable to accept my femininity and woman’s nature and difference from her. And she could not accept her feminine nature first, and then mine. I was and still am okay, and that joke was my mom’s message about her problems, and it had nothing to do with me, my appearance, my nature, my body, my behavior, my selfness and my authenticity. I am what I am, and I am recovering my original right to be a GIRL and WOMAN! And I am happy for that!

I am aware of how much I love her. I recognize that I need her acceptance and smiles. But she is what she is. I did my best to wake her up, so we could be close to each other, but I cannot make her take responsibility for her words, actions and harmful behavior. I cannot do her work by myself, if she can’t or doesn’t want to. Whatever efforts I continue to make, all will be in vain. She is not ready, she is helpless in the face of fear, she doesn’t have any experience with overcoming obstacles and traumas and problems in the sphere of relationships and love. The only tactics she is acquainted with and uses are to escape, not to register and see the core of the problem because it is hard, scary and painful. I am simply unable and I cry for that. I hope some day I will make peace with this situation and let it go. I will forgive my mom and free myself of that pain and hope for intimacy between us. And I will let myself go and live my life without hearing offensive voices and harboring useless hopes. I will shake off all I cannot change and influence and will walk freely with my shoulders spread and my face up.

I will go my way with no more fear of repeating my mother’s life because I’ve always been afraid of doing exactly that. And I partially did. I am a lonely woman. I’ve always been frightened to also become lonely, unhappy and a single mother. And I followed in her footsteps unconsciously, I guess, to ease her pain, to share her loneliness and undisclosed desires and sacrificing. I love her so much. She’s so important to me. So I agreed to join her unhappy life not to leave her alone with all those painful things. Probably because I wondered how I could be happy when she was so unhappy, angry and sacrificing? My heart keeps on breaking, but I’ve decided to give back to my mom her responsibility for her life, her way and happiness. And I’ll take my life back for me. I am sorry, my beloved mother, but I want to be happy. I am sorry, but I am not you. I am a separate person. What’s yours is yours and what’s mine is mine. I let you go your way, and I will go mine. My story is different. I am my personal hero. I am not afraid to drag the past out into the light. I am brave, I am strong. I am now wiser. I will write my story and I will always love you with no more sacrificing.

I am forty and still trying to identify my authenticity and the feminine nature I’ve lost. I have to find out what I am again. I am lost and in despair because I have to collect the broken pieces of myself, study them, and decide whether they are truly mine or not, and make a whole out of it. I am still not quite sure what a feminine nature is. I know something from books, movies and talks between girls. That is a tremendously difficult process, and I need a guide to get through it. There are things we can’t create on our own. To go down a path like this one, you need support. I am lucky because I have a form of support in my psychotherapist. She gives me a lot of acceptance, knowledge and wisdom. I’ve learned so many things about human nature, relationships between men and women, parents and children, and much much more – I cannot list it all. And again I have a long road ahead of me. Yet I am ready to turn a new page in my life. Wish me good luck. I will need it too.

(…to be continued…)

2021: Conceived – Volume 2 of a Contemporary Transadaptation 

January: The Pack – Alejandra Baccino (Uruguay)

February: The Pink Shirt – Talia Stotts (America)

March: Dragging the Past out into the Light – Kate Korneeva (Russia)

April: Looking Forward to Spring – Marilin Guerrero Casas (Cuba)

May: Every Little Thing – Gennady Bondarenko (Ukraine)

June: The Girl Who Chased the Rainbow – Toni Wallis (Sarah-Leah Pimentel) (South Africa)

July: Another World – Jonay Quintero Hernandez (Spain)

August: Life after Nare – Nane Sevunts (Armine Asryan) (Armenia)

September: Meeting My Homeland – Rayan Harake (Lebanon)

October: Catching Water (Part Two) – Javier Gomez (Argentina)

November: Remember – Seyit Ali Dastan (Turkey)

December: I Can’t Breathe – Veronica Cordido (Venezuela)

Background – Context

In the Middle – Prelude to a Contemporary Transadaptation, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2020)

Peripatetic Alterity: A Philosophical Treatise on the Spectrum of Being – Romantics and Pragmatists by Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

La Syncrétion of Polarization and Extremes Transposée, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2019)

The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2018)

L’anthologie of Global Instability Transpuesta, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2017)

From Wahnsinnig to the Loony Bin: German and Russian Stories Transposed to Modern-day America, (eds.) Angelika Friedrich, Yuri Smirnov and Henry Whittlesey (2013)

Emblems and stories on the international community

Perception by country – Transposing emblems, articles, short stories and reports from around the world

Credits

Cover photo: Moscow, Russia – On the bus 2 – Alexander Popov (Unsplash)
Source: The Codex of Uncertainty Transposed