For the longest time, I felt anger at my mother, so I thought that I didn’t love her. Most recently (in the last year or so, I’m not sure)- I felt love for her, or so I thought.

It is only in the last 2-3 days, and today in particular, that I realize that the “love” I felt for her in the last year or so, was the LONGING to be loved by her, my whole life- minus a few recent days- spent hoping that she will love me back.

I say love in quotation marks because it wasn’t a cozy, calm feeling, that of basking in safety.

It was only a hope, and one to never materialize.

Now that I no longer hope, or now that I am in the process of letting go of this hope, I don’t feel that “love” for her, and that’s a significant relief.

Unknowingly, to me, I confused hoping to be loved by her (to be seen, approved of, liked, safe), with the idea that I loved her.

I loved a fantasy of her and hoped and longed for that fantasy to come true, which never happened and never will.

Anita