Love is an emotion that I feel for another person. Love is not entirely logical. A very strong feeling of affection and a concern for that person’s wellbeing and safety. A willingness on my part to do things for that person that I would not do for others. A desire to see that person be happy. A feeling of happiness on my part to see that person happy. <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Pleasure in seeing a smile. A feeling of connectedness, no matter if
\nI don’t see the person for a long time. A desire to give more to that
\nperson than what I receive. In every sense of the word give. An
\ninterest in seeing the person but more so an interest in talking with
\nthe person. Being able to talk and share stories and experiences and
\ncommiserate and comfort is more important to me than to be physically
\npresent because the connection between the minds and hearts is what is
\nthe most important to me and can happen regardless of whether I see the
\nperson or not.\n<\/p>\n
As for being a mother who loves, this kind of love is very hard to
\nbreak. However, sometimes children grow into adults who can’t love
\nback, who can’t reciprocate love, and can’t even recognize the love of
\ntheir parents. This is a sad situation when love isn’t appreciated,
\nacknowledged and recognized. Being the parent of a daughter who admits
\nthat she does not love me, can’t recognize my love and rejects it and
\nwho also is very willing to hurt me emotionally, I am extremely
\ndistrustful and wary of her. I believe that I will never trust her
\nagain. I can’t imagine circumstances that will turn this situation
\naround.<\/p>\n
Trust is an important part of love. I can love more easily when I
\ncan trust. When trust is broken, then my love is guarded and no longer
\ngiven as freely. I can still love but only with caution because of the
\nfear of being hurt. When someone has proven that they can hurt me and
\nare willing to hurt me, then I put up walls to protect myself,
\nboundaries between myself and them. I love but cautiously. This is a
\nsad way to love but sometimes it is the only way.<\/p>\n
Loving another makes a person very vulnerable. It is easy to hurt
\nsomeone who loves you. When you love, you are more easily hurt by the
\nperson whom you love. If you protect yourself so much in life that no
\none can every hurt you, then you can’t love fully. But you’ll be safer.\n<\/p>\n
The odd thing is that there are adults who love parents who have
\nseverely abused them. There are parents who are alcoholics, drug
\naddicts, wife beaters, child beaters, bank robbers, and worse and there
\nare adult children who love them. I’m not saying that the children
\nshould love them. I am saying that there are a lot of people who love
\nVERY imperfect parents. I have loved very imperfect parents.<\/p>\n
There are adult children who are not capable of loving parents whom
\nthey feel disappointed by because when they were already adults, they
\nthink that their parents weren’t there sufficiently to comfort them in
\nsituations where, in some cases, the parents didn’t know about the
\nsituation or weren’t physically able to be present or were cut off
\nalready by the adult child so that they couldn’t be present. So to them
\nthis absence of parental presence means that they are insufficiently
\nloved. They don’t love their parents and can’t recognize their parents’
\nlove for them. It seems to be a fact of life like bark growing on
\ntrees. Some people just don’t love their parents.<\/p>\n
The question to me is, does such a person want to be this way or do
\nthey want to change? So far, I think that she wants to be the way that
\nshe is, unloving of her parents and convinced that her parents don’t
\nlove her. So she has things just the way that she wants them. Until she
\nchanges her mind, if ever, that is how things will stay.<\/p>\n
BTW, Robin, you did tell me the story about your first grade teacher
\nwhen you were in first grade. She gave you bad grades in handwriting
\nand art and I was angry about how she treated you and all of her
\nstudents. She was a terrible teacher. I wanted to have you switched to
\nanother class. Your father disagreed with that. You told me at the time
\nit all happened in first grade.<\/p>\n
Yes, you put caterpillers on her chair and laughed about it when you
\ntold me. I was happy for you. Yes, you had nightmares and did sleep
\nwalk but you were still in her class when that happened. That would
\nhave been in the school year of 1972-73. You slept walked when we lived
\non Chandler Street. That was at the time when you were in her class.
\nYou weren’t in that school long enough to go to third grade there as we
\nmoved in 1974 when we bought the house. I remember the specific years
\nwell because I remember what years I was in graduate school and then
\nteaching. You never did any sleepwalking after we moved. Yes, you
\ntrusted me enough then to tell me about the teacher.<\/p>\n
In my mind’s eye I can still see you crying while sitting on the
\nfloor in the living room when you were sleep walking. Both your father
\nand I were concerned for you and I was angry at him that he didn’t
\nsupport me in getting you taken out of her class. <\/p>\n
Life has such ironies. I always had wished that I had a smart
\ncapable mother who could take good care of herself, who didn’t say rude
\nthings during the holidays at the dinner table in front of others, who
\ndidn’t drink and drive, who wasn’t always in crisis. I wanted a mother
\nwhom I could be proud of. I would have liked having myself as a mother.
\nBut Robin wants someone as a mother who is someone other than me. <\/p>\n
Snicks<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Love is an emotion that I feel for another person. Love is not entirely logical. A very strong feeling of affection and a concern for that person’s wellbeing and safety. A willingness on my part to do things for that person that I would not do for others. A desire to see that person be…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,69],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-253","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-for-parents","category-weblogs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=253"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/253\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=253"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=253"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/estrangements.com\/theblog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=253"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}