Good morning. I looked back and discovered it’s been a month since I’ve sat and shared a tea with you.

Well, a lot has happened and my emotional overload was a bit much to handle. But all that has happened is due to the living of life by this very tag…

Most of you who read this blog are aware that I’ve been estranged from my daughter and her kids for a number of years. We had a rough relationship from the very start, and over the years it had become a back and forth, on and off thing between us.

In November I had taken what was supposed to be a one year break from social media, and I was doing great until the end of January when one 3:30AM wake up convinced me to log on. I’d heard some gossip about myself and it may have been bugging me. I don’t know what the draw to reactivate my account was all about, but I did it. I checked on my sister and she was fine. Ok. I stayed up that day, scrolling and looking in on people I missed. It never occurred to me to look at my daughters FB because I had been blocked for a long time.

A couple mornings passed and I opened the FB app to see some memories pop up. As I was looking through them, an old post of my daughter that I was tagged in came up.

Here was the dilemma. Do I say something? I am her mother. It’s always my job to make the move. This didn’t happen for no reason, right? The above are thoughts I was having while also trying hard to run away and not say a word. That old fear of rejection kicking in and trying to convince me NOT to act out of love and be the mother in the situation.

The fearful little girl is no longer who I am. I have overcome things most humans cannot. I can handle rejection because I know it’s not all about me. She had the right and the reason to reject me if she chooses, but this woman is no coward.

I typed the message. Told her I love her. The response I got was pretty harsh. She gets to feel how she feels. My response was not the same as it would be in the past. Denial. Rage. Sadness. Minimization.

My response was new and adult. Remorse. Understanding. Patience. Love.

What I read next allowed me to release 4 years of pain I’d been carrying around. She said she didn’t hate me, and even that I had some really good qualities as a human. She also opened the door to a reunion. I fell to the floor bawling.

SO, we’ve met up a couple times since, and I went on my vacation to the Gulf coast. I’ve been enjoying life and relaxing a bit. It’s like a heavy load was lifted and I can REALLY just be!!

You see, I have filled my hours and days with anything I could make “my baby.” I’ve come to recognize that all my little projects and dreams were just a substitute for the thing I was always lacking: motherhood. So if I had a dream or goal, then I had something to nurture and raise. But what I’ve also come to realize is that none of my dreams were ever going to come to fruition if I couldn’t fulfill my role as a mom. I just couldn’t push ahead and past that failure. Because while I may have lacked knowledge and understanding to be the best mom I could be; I never lacked the love or desire.

The principle ingredient of life definitely is love. And my tea cup runneth over today, my friends and fellow Cookers.

My daughter is my everything. We’ve had some really amazing visits to start bonding again and I feel like we are on track toward a long and healthy mother and daughter relationship.

So, if I should disappear or fail to write a post; please try to understand that I’m always in recovery from something, always working to improve something, but I’m always acting out of love for myself and others. Sometimes that means doing absofuckinglutely nothing!!