I heard about Ambiguous Loss and Ambiguous Grief today and even the myth of closure, when it comes to death in its various forms. (Pauline Boss)
The death that I am referring to is the death of a relationship.
When it comes to estrangement, ambiguity is its energy completely.
She spoke about holding two different beliefs at the same time.
For me it is folks are here and yet gone.
They are living but our relationship is dead.
I can't hold just one side.
I have to carry two.
Gone and Here.
Nothing is certain or inexactness.
And, I think this is for both sides. I don't think it matters who left the relationship just that we both are now no longer in one...yet we are all here. Alive and, perhaps some of us, grieving its loss.
We are on Facebook and some will "like" and message, EVEN if in real life we have no contact. So, there is very weird contact.
There are more uncertain things, than certain, when it comes to estrangement.
Often, the estrangement is over truth. One side wants to embrace it and the other wants to continue to live in the imaginary world. Pete Rollins speaks of the "Ideal Image" on a podcast with Rob Bell. (I am Totally enjoying these podcasts)
Each of us have an idealized image of themselves and the rest of us either support or break that image, often with the truth. Even how we curate our Facebook pages show an airbrushed version of our lives and who we are.
In my estranged relationship, I feel that one side is an airbrushed image of family, while I sit on the untouched up version. And, I also believe that some feel with time, my untouched version will start to be airbrushed to match theirs. That over time, I will mellow and capitulate my unvarnished truths.
With the ambiguity of estrangement, how do we live with the gone now showing up in various forms.
I have had the experience in the past few weeks of comments on Facebook, to Likes, and messages. I have had a near miss encounter on a beach where my sisters, a brother and mother were on the same day and time as I was. I didn't see them; but one saw me. I have received a postcard; again....from my mother.
What is the message of the Universe that they seem to be circling closer to my peace?
Are they testing the waters to see if my truth has changed - like it can?
Am I to take stock yet again?
I feel powerless and violated by their intrusions, even if they were by accident.
To be seen but not know it.
For them to feel it is their right, which I guess it is, to tap into my world from time to time.
To drop notes on postcards, you can't "Returned to Sender" and the words are read before you can even blink.
I truly don't get why it seems they brush against me from time to time.
Even my father's victims are often shopping when I am. In the Dentist and diners.
Am I the one who expects finality and a complete exit when it is impossible?
That has to be right. I want finite when ambiguity is what it is.
I have to become accepting and obliging to the ambiguity of the gone appearing.
Of the silent speaking.
The author Pauline speaks of how hard it is to grieve ambiguity, for it isn't even gone gone. It is gone and then there. Or gone for now... but maybe will appear later, one day.
And closure, forget about it. It will not happen ever. For you would have to forget you ever had a relationship and that can't be. You had one. You parted ways. It was either your image that was being threatened or you were the truth bearer. How can you close a relationship that was open? It is open. Just for some of us, it is a gone and then here, kind of on and off again, see and not seen relationship.
Here is what I am just now seeing as I write this.
Ambiguity IS estrangement with alive people.
You will have near misses.
And perhaps moments where you do feel the need to reach out and do.
It is the total flavor of ambiguity.
Somehow, I am sure, I believed that my resolute stance on the truth would be equalled on their side.
Oh, I understand, they may be ambiguous about where they are or even who.
While I am certain of a few things.
I am certain that I was in denial and now I am not.
I am learning daily who I am and willing to explore deeper and wider to understand different facets of estrangement...as well as myself and life.
I am even willing to be unknowing of who I am or who I will become - for I am unfolding daily.
It seems to me, that they are very sure of family and love and their image. Regardless if it misses a few integral sections of life.
My estrangement with them, is more about who we are as individuals and what our content is and how much we are willing to leave in its raw form...or how much some want to cover up the unsightly blemishes.
I see them as a painter painting over reality to keep an image they need.
I know, for me, when I stopped painting reality revealed itself.
It was and often is messy - but it is life at its rawest.
Ambiguity is what I need to embrace and learn to love and find peace with and give up any idea of closure - even if it was a subconscious desire.
It is right and normal for this to pop up at my work
flinging me backwards into crux of my estrangement with my mother.
I still wonder what she forgives me for.
I wonder if she knows what she is asking me to forgive her for - it is so generic.
And I love you always forever. She too believes in finite.
I wonder if love itself is ambiguous?
Can there be a forever type of love?
Or, an always?
Do we as humans feel better in the finite and certain linear ideals?
What does it mean when her love for me never changes?
Was that the same kind of love she had for my father?
I wonder what I love without ambiguity?
Perhaps the truth or reality.
What I love most about this post is that I am no longer feeling like "it shouldn't be happening" or that I must make them do this or that.
I was only violated by my belief that estrangement would not be ambiguous.
My experience of estrangement is that it is totally full of ambiguity.
The Universe choreographed the perfect weeks for me to see and understand the tone of estrangement and to set them all free to contact me or not.
Estrangement was never mine to control in the first place.
All I have ever done is follow where my truth led.
And they all make moves based on where they are and what they need and what image they need to hold.
They are and have always been free to move on their own free will.
It is mine to respond or allow it to be.
I don't have the power to wipe away my mother's faults.
I am not withholding.
Her faults are hers to deal with.
All I can manage and course correct, are my own.
Rob Bell talked about forgiveness too.
And, from his example, I believe that I have forgiven my mother.
I do not hold anger for her.
What I know and see and have experienced, is that her faith speaks to me before a mother. Do you hear that?
In the post card, her Faith is speaking to me first...and it is much more important than our relationship of mother/daughter.
Who I would be dialoguing with is her Faith - not my mother.
My mother is hiding far behind the Faith Wall.
I can forgive my mother for she is blinded with faith, like I used to be.
And, I refuse to reconnect with a Faith.
Especially that Faith.
And, I am eternally grateful that my faith wall fell to the ground. And, that I stood naked and in shock that there was actually a Being there.
A Me, who I had never met.
How can I begin to begin to explain this to her as she(her faith) ask me to forgive.
The woman I cannot reach is behind the wall.
Another ambiguity.
There but not there.
