Alternate Mother Exercise
One of my most resisted therapy homework assignments was/is imagining what the Hated Party could have been with just one or two changes of the elements in their life equation. Yucko bucko! No wonder I am so in hate with the verbs of lost opportunity. Could have been don't count, Asshole. None of the folks offering the assignment seemed offended when I found a million translations for, "Go fornicate thine own body." All of them gently assured me it was just a suggestion. Take it, or leave it. Your own time is right on time every time.
Fast forward a few resistant decades and I find myself wondering if it is just the world's longest homework assignment. Works in progress, whether I asked for it, or knot? My own time is right on time every time?
Over the course of the funeral yaddahs for my husband's parents, so far I find myself processing Mister Surname's head nurse far more than I am processing either of the deceased. She has been giving me mother flashbacks since I first met her the week after Missus Surname's stroke, some-odd months less than 5 years ago. My mother held the head nurse position in similar estates back before the position required a 4 year degree. Both women are short and stout-turned-obese. Both women are naturally ambitious with pro-active dreams of actual social reform. Is Mister Surname's head nurse the woman my mother could have been if she had been able to stay an academic course and acquire a nursing degree?
The mother flashbacks had me convinced from the first meeting that Madam Mommy had found her cash cow and was milking like an industrial dairy maid. I have kept my own focus on being okay with it being none of my business. Even if true, processing my Madam Mommy flashbacks felt/feels far more important to my own strictly personal business than what is happening to an old fool and his money. Money is just dirty paper. A dollar more than I actually need is just shark bait. Madam Mommy has been a cruel reality since the onset of human economics.
It feels good to be home. Did I just call a building home?
Replies
Hmmf (towards myself, not you). I think I've been stuck in your exercise my whole life. IF I could just get my mother to see me, IF she would just relax, IF this, IF that. Blah, blah, blah, blah...I bore myself.
Honestly, I'm not sure that it's such a great thought process to open up. The mothers didn't have those changes. If wishes were horses beggars would ride. I get that my mother wanted to do better, I'd bet that yours did too. Mine also had plenty of opportunities to do things different...and didn't. End of story.
Yea, I still question the validity of the exercise, as well. I already spend enough time Iffinating that I proclaimed "IF" to be an acronym of "Idiot Factor," even (especially?) when I use if's in my planning. When planning, my goal is to get the IF out of it.
Still. . . There are questions of prosecuting the Head Nurse (adopted daughter?) for exploitation and worries about what she has in store for her cash cow's descendants. It is allot to process. . . Especially when you factor in flashbacks to my biological mother and her use of offspring in her family businesses. She promised the darling old gent would still respect me in the morning. . .