I don’t know how to express my creativity. My creativity was last seen when I was young. She showed up daily in the things I loved to do, knit, crochet, needlepoint, bake, write, read…all of the activities I loved and could do for days on end. She showed up in the way I dressed. She happily and proudly wore all the colors of the rainbow; purple & red bellbottoms, patched jeans that my grandmother made for me, brightly colored blouses, felt beautiful with her long straight hair and her endless uniqueness. She showed up in every fiber of my being until the comments started. Why didn’t she want to go out and play? Why did she dress the way she did? Why was she so different? She became a teenager who followed peer rituals and acted like everyone else to fit in. Then she was too old for rainbow colors and her unending uniqueness which was now different and weird. She yearned to be accepted so she gave up those parts of herself…then she entered the corporate world and learned to live in a right brain world, act like a man, think logically because emotions are messy and not valued. Now I occasionally see glimpses of her…in recipes I make up from scratch, when I decorate my house, or when I dress up. She pops her head up only sometimes…a far cry from how she used to be in my life…I want her back.
I can forgive my mom. I miss my mom. I sat at the lake with my husband yesterday, feet dangling in the water, and we talked about our moms. Both of whom used to visit the same lake. Both of us missing mom’s we never had. At one point in her life she was beautiful and able to hide her sorrow behind her glamorous facade. Then came marriage, four kids, and the realization that her husband was not Prince Charming. Grew up on welfare with no mother and a father who was never home. A gambler and a drunk, his favorite saying was “only thing dumber than a cow is a woman’…sexually abused by an uncle, the husband of her favorite aunt, she never said a word for fear of losing her love. She told me that all she ever wanted was a mother, for one of her aunts to invite her to live with her, but instead they would send her home to her own house where no one was home. Same as me, always wanting a mother. Realizing after four kids, losing her looks, and a husband who neglected her. That for all of her efforts to change her life, she was still in the same place. Like me, waking up to realize that for all my efforts I’m in the same place as she was. Hard to hate someone so similar….
I don’t know if I’ll ever break out of my corporate personality. It is easy to stay there and I’ve worked hard to be a closed up, left brain person who does well at work, handles everything, and acts like I have it all together. I have a comfortable like. Why would I give that up for the unknown? My corporate personality is boring and not me. I am emotional. I don’t have my act together. I am ordinary. I want to be in the feminine. I want my creativity back.
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