Therapy

Therapy is not magic.

But it does remind you to be a little gentler in your delivery of your judgement against your mom and your culture.
It reminds you that you do not feel the guilt of escaping war and poverty the way she did and you do not feel the guilt of leaving relatives behind. You think the guilt is dangerous and makes little sense but what you think and what she feels may be equally valid and that's frustrating for you
because she is your mother
and she deserves to lose the burden.

Therapy reminds you to be brave even though it doesn't take you completely there. You have to do that. But at least it reminds you that you can. Being brave is hard. Letting go is hard. You've done it a ton but it never gets easier... letting go of a person.

Therapy is a love letter to yourself.

You've been thinking about giving out love a lot.
Giving it out freely because it's bottled up and all you want to do is love. The purpose of your life is love.
You think about what would it be like to be a mom? What is it like to be a good spouse or a good friend? What it would be like to love seamlessly and easily?

And how do you entwine that with a career and a neighborhood that enriches the spirit rather than depletes it completely? Beyonce says everything is love, right? But you feel unheard.

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I have this running joke inside my head
that
I don't call my family
because I don't get calls from romantic partners
so somehow I take it out on my grandma
who just wants to check in on her grandkid

I think I take it out on her when
I'm catching people who are not quite at their prime yet
and who I help build
only to have them blossom elsewhere
Recognition and apology or not.... it happens a lot.

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So that's why you do therapy and meditation and running and writing as love letters

It reminds you that you're complicated and you're nuanced and it's good that you feel. When you were younger you avoided it, afraid that it would make you prey to vultures who can detect weakness. But when you're older, you realize that they prey on you, attach to you, because that sensibility is what that seek in themselves.

You want more. You pray that it would come. You speak it into existence.
But you are not patient.

Thus therapy.

"Teach me to be like you so I can not give a fuck" - Cardi B