Dear Sesha:

That’s how I felt every time I visited my mother, the old wound opened up and bled, all over again, every single time.

At 25, desperate enough, I flew thousands of miles away from her, a whole ocean and two continents away, and I made progress far away from her, but every time I visited her, I regressed, much of the progress was undone by seeing her/ hearing her/ feeling her so close to me, too close. Eventually, all progress was undone, and I was depleted. I lost decades of life, life unlived, or too poorly lived.

“I really don’t like this side of me, and I blame myself” – really, it is not your fault, not any more than it was mine. I couldn’t help it that when I saw her, the wound re-opened. Nature operates this way. I can’t help nature.

If you “jump in the cold water“, like I did when I moved continents away, all by myself and with very limited resources, you’d have to make sure that you don’t visit the … same old, same old murky waters of many old injuries.

anita