You Can't Hurry Love

My 2ndDaughter, Debra, was listening to a song this afternoon that reminded her of me. She'a been very aware and sensitive to how much I've struggled with being alone, how much I've wanted a partner, how much, sometimes, I'd just like to have a date. I know that Debra has cried for me from time to time. So, this afternoon, she sent me an email telling me she'd been listening to Phil Collins' version of "You Can't Hurry Love."

Her love choked me up.

Chokes me up.

Constantly.

And her email made me smile, too, because I remembered sending her snippets of 60's songs to help her have a different perspective on her dating journey early on. And telling her to pay attention to my advice because she would eventually have to feed it back to me. I did a search of our chats over the years to see if I had sent her the same song. It wasn't there, but it started me reading our first chats.

Back before I was "Momma" or even "Mom."

I was "Shannon" or "Hey, girl!"

We talked about my divorce and my name change.

We talked about her nails. She has always liked her nails painted even before she was out at work and always wore them for the weekends.

We talked about my orchie and her surgery.

We talked about dinner, and PFLAG, and church.

It was a very heart-tugging moment to read those chats this afternoon. We have shared so much and grown so much in the 3-plus years we've been, first as new trans-women, then very good friends, and then Mom and Daughter. Growth is rarely painless. And we've been there for each other. I know that she is concerned about me. I worry about her. It is because of her that I have come to know I am a mom and how much I love being her mom. (Well, Annabelle has helped a lot, too!)



Debra is my best friend. She is my Daughter. I am so proud when she calls me momma.
And I choke up.

You're my Mom!

I am sometimes (often? most of the time?) a very insecure person.  I don't understand what I mean to a lot of the people I love.  I have a very hard time thinking I am special.  And yet I have all these marvelous people who love me and think that I am truly a rare find!  But I don't understand it at all.

I have tried to be a good mom to my Second Daughter.  It is a challenge, not because of her, but because I do not want to let her grow up and be who she is.  I want to hold on to her and to be involved in everything she does.  But she has grown up and has earned her freedom and a life to call her own.  I am not doing well with "empty nest."

And when she is with me, when we are together, I don't understand why she wants to spend time with me.  I am a wet-blanket and nothing like as fun as her boyfriend or some of her girlfriends.  And when I bemoan my lack of understanding, she tells me, in exasperation, "You're my Mom!" like that explains everything!  I stand there without any comprehension of what it means to her for me to be her mom.  I don't know why I don't understand.

Tonight, I got a clue...

I was the oldest, the first-born, of three brothers.  I do not remember feeling special to my mother.  I was never able to make her feel proud of me.  Nothing I did was good enough.  I could not make her show me her love.  After Poppa knows how long, I became just this child, confused and alone, who lived in the same house with my mom and dad and my brothers.  I felt no real connection to anyone but my next younger brother (who happened to be Mom's favorite.)

I have no experience of what it means to love my mom.  I have no reference point when Debra tells me, "You're my Mom!"