Mothering

In an effort to truly understand who I am and why I am the way that I am, I had a bit of an epiphany last night.  I was discussing how I had be treated by another person to a group of woman.  I've truly gotten over the hurt and moved on to the "they are who they are" stage.  I don't hold grudges easily, if someone has truly been horrible to me, I just avoid them and I am civil when we do end up having to be together. All of the women knew who I was talking about since she is a leader of sorts in our group.

One of the women, a mother of eight, had sympathetic consoling words for me.  I realized in that moment, that that was new experience for me.  I was being "mothered", not in a weird way, because this woman isn't my mother, but in a kind thoughtful way.  My feelings mattered, the fact that I had been hurt mattered.  Looking back, I realized that I had never been mothered that way.  I wonder if it was because I pushed my mother away, or if she just never reached out to me that way.  I do remember thinking as a young girl that my own mother spoke more kindly to the dog than she did to me.  She would have said that is because I  was hard to get along with and argumentative.  She may be right, I may have pushed her away with the way that I was.  I'm not doing that anymore, so hopefully I will have more of those comforting moments in my life.   It is an odd thing to realize that I am not used to being spoken to kindly by woman, it makes me wonder about the vibes I send out.    Maybe I'm not sending those vibes out anymore, maybe I am letting people know that it is okay to reach out to me.  I sure do hope so.