It's such an interesting web we weave, in writing our karmic scripts, and then having them play out, but sometimes, because of free will, we scoot right past an event or item that was supposed to be a trigger point, and sometimes we take the high road instead of the low road, and have a much longer, but more beautiful, journey. It reminds me that the goal is not everything, but the journey itself.
When I say I had a challenging mother, you have to understand that that perception was based on my first 16 years of life, i.e. what I thought was challenging at that time. Rightly based on some pretty challenging deeds and experiences, for sure, but could I stand far enough back from myself at that age to get a view of the challenge I was presenting to them?
Me: refusing to eat lettuce. Her: making me eat it off the floor after I'd thrown it there.
Me: refusing to eat (name the food). Her: making me eat my meal out on the back doorstep where the dog bowl was kept.
Me: refusing to go on a planned week's holiday, because I wanted to save my pet dog (who was a pound jobbie, meaning saved from the jaws of the pound, and I thought she deserved to live). Her: Taking the dog down to get her euthanased so we could go on holiday.
Me: stealing food out of biscuit tins, etc, all my life, but being incensed when I was accused of eating the whole of my sister's birthday cake, even the candles. (The munched candles were later found in that dog's kennel, months later).
Me: Fighting for my rights. Her: taking me out of the amateur dramatics version of Sound of Music, in which I had a part, right before opening night.
Me: Refusing to wear woollen singlet (scratchy), best dress, stockings with suspender belt, hat and gloves to the cinema when I was about 5. Her: making everyone miss out on the cinema because of my behaviour.
Me: Refusing to wear any of the new clothes she bought me until I was about 8 years of age. Her: Not buying me any new clothes until I was age 16 and I could buy them for myself. I had to live on the hand-me-downs of my older sister.
Me: earning the princely sum of $45 a week at age 16. Her: going through my bank book with a magnifying glass to see if I was spending any of my money on marijuana.
Me: Screaming and shouting that I had been raped (uncalled for dramatics, and not true), and jumping out the window. Her and my father: hosing down my room, wardrobe, carpet, bed and everything in my room with the garden hose, which caused my said reaction (and caused me to leave my family home the next night, never to reside there again).
Me: Spending all day cooking a vegetarian meal including baking fresh bread in the oven, when my Mum and Dad would visit me for a meal for the first time, years after I had left home. Her: bringing a complete cooked meal including roast chicken and bread rolls, salad, and leaving nothing to chance.
And the list could go on.
My mum has passed on now. I found as I lived longer that I am extremely like her. Down to very small details. I even have the same disease, unfortunately given to me in the DNA. I continued to visit my parents, even from interstate, and tried to connect and spend time with my mother, although it was well known we would have an argument within 2 hours of my entering their home. Her parting words to me before she died were that she didn't like my choice of 2nd husband (and time proved her right!)
Only through being a mother myself, and living through years of mental instability in my daughter, have allowed me to see things more from my mother's perspective. And then, after her death, in light of what my daughter was going through, my father told me that my mother had fought mental instability all her life, and that she had been to a psychiatrist for many years as a young teenager. I knew she had been a hypochondriac, but I hadn't realised her mental health was actually challenged. Then I found out that my daughter's other grandmother also has mental instability - so my daughter has received a double-whammy from both sides of the family tree, proving to be a challenge to her, but one I believe she will overcome and flourish.