Making Peace with my Mother

It has been very healing for me to look back at old photos these last few weeks.

I made peace with my mother years ago. I let go of the childish expectations and grievances I had with her. I learned to accept and love her as she was, which was actually a gift to me - and to my children.

However, there was still a small child-part of me that wondered about the depth of her love for me as a child.

Perhaps I was not ready to see it years ago, when my grandmother gave me the boxes of family pictures. I looked through all but one.

Last week, I opened the box that contained the pictures of me as a young child. Most of the photos were me with my mother. And the look in her eyes said everything I needed to know.

Because now I know her as a person, and I know that the look she gave me, picture after picture, was love and pure adoration.

Leaving Home

I have been mentally preparing myself and the kids for the time that we will leave our home and move into something much smaller. I have come to terms with that for the most part. This is a large home to manage on my own, especially with the children, who need a lot of care and love - and also are prone to make messes the moment I clean something.

The irony is not lost on me that I have spent the last 2 years helping people stay in their homes, and I will lose mine.

I have spent the last 12 years helping hundreds of people improve their credit, and my credit is now tanked.

I have done all of this without cost to anyone or profit to me because it is something I believe in strongly. I used to think credit was an indication of character, and it sometimes is. But over the years I also found that many people were hit by forces they could not control, and I always tried to help those people.

Yesterday a man called to ask me to help him with his credit. I called him back and told him my grandmother was dying and I was not available. I know I am doing the right thing now, but I was also sad that I could not even refer him to someone else. I tried to explain that it was never part of my job, it was just something I did. Most mortgage brokers only care about profit.

Ironically, I also helped my husband improve his credit, which was very bad when I met him. But he seems to have no problem leaving me with this mess. He will always have his dad to bail him out and pay cash for anything. I don't have that option.

It is a hard thing to grapple with, partly because my ego is still attached to it. I took pride in my credit. I took pride in my home. And now both are gone.

But I do believe that better things will come. Credit is only a picture in time. It is never static and I can work to improve it. And I know I will be happier living somewhere else.

It's funny how losing things has shown me some of the lies I so eagerly believed.

I was so attached to my beautiful diamonds. It was so hard to take them off my finger. But now I rarely wear rings at all. I appreciate the simplicity of my fingers. I don't want another ring there. The rings now represent a false promise. My husband was never committed to me. The rings only represented that I was his. I was a possession. The rings were a reflection of him, not of me.

My children do not want to leave this home. It is all they have really known. I am sad for them, but I am trying to paint a happy picture filled with new possibilities and dreams.

I have been looking through many of the old pictures from my childhood. Some of the most comforting are of me in my grandparents home. My parents moved around after their divorce, but that home was a rock for me. I realized it was just the familiarity that meant so much to it - because it was their home and it was filled with so much love.