Relating to Happiness?

Relating to Happiness?

Holiday season is coming up. Family gatherings, being together, sharing a big, special meal, feeling connected like a real family…..This supposed to be normal and I think most people have a family and warm place to go to coming months.

For me….I don’t know. My family, my mother… they don’t make me feel warm inside at all, rather thinking of my mother gives me a cold feeling inside my chest.

It’s so sad.

To see a lot of happy people but I just don’t understand how they get to feeling so happy. It’s hard for me to relate to that feeling, to this illusive thing called happiness.

I wish for me to feel more happy, I crave it, I long for it, yet I know I just don’t have that family that makes me happy.

Maybe I don’t deserve it. Call it bad karma. Maybe it’s just not in the cards for me.

Yet I wish, I wish, oh I wish, I had this warm mother who would be able to like me, and take as I am. And maybe love me?

More on healing Mother-Daughter-Relationships…

Christmas – Recently Stopped Talking to Mom

Christmas – Recently Stopped Talking to Mom

Let me start off by stating I was not physically abused by my mother. I grew up in a single parent household with my mom & brother. My brother is 9 yrs younger than me and we have never been close. She dotes on him like he is walking perfection. I have always been the sensitive one in the family. I always felt ugly and not good enough. My mother would explode in bouts of anger and say hurtful things to me that cut me deep.

I’m 35 yrs old now with a 13 yr old daughter. I see all the hardships she goes through at this stage and it only serves to remind me of how distant, uninvolved and callous my mother was to me at 13.

I have had depression since high school. Went to college (without any support from my mother) and made a decent life for myself and my daughter. Over the years my mother married my stepfather, whom I love dearly. I still harbored a lot of past resentments towards my mother, but once she got married and was happy we forged a better relationship.

My parents are very comfortable financially. Four cars, two houses later my mom decided to retire at the age of 47. I was laid off from a very high paying job 3 yrs ago and times have been extremely hard on me. I lost my house in a nice suburb and had to move into an apt in a bad neighborhood. Therefore I decided to let my daughter go to live with her father and his parents for a better life.

I said all that to say, my mother has NEVER once offered to help me. We would talk at least 3-4 times a week so she knows my struggles with depression and finances. She helps my brother with anything he asks for, but if I ask it’s “I don’t have it”. Yet she calls me to tell me about all her latest purchases and what not?!

I’ve just had it so I decided to basically stop talking to her. Having no familial support when I’ve been at my lowest made me see she has never valued me. Family is supposed to help each other if possible and I can’t imagine allowing my daughter to suffer the way my mother has allowed me to. Not even $100 to pay a utility bill…I mean no help whatsoever. At my lowest all I had to eat was tuna fish every day.

I am currently looking for a job, but since my vehicle was repossessed I don’t even have a way around due to where I live. My mother never even offered to let me use one of her FOUR cars until I can get back on track. I have pushed down a lot of past resentments and we had a pretty good relationship up to this point.

I just can’t get past the anger of feeling like I’m actually all alone. She could care less about me and all I’m going thru..and it hurts!

I’m torn because I love my mom but I finally see how she truly feels about me when the chips are down. So I sent her a letter and told her exactly how I feel. My mother is extremely selfish and shuts down the minute there is conflict so we are now no longer speaking..

I just don’t know how to feel about it. I’ve never got motherly love from her, but that’s still my mom. Ughhh…

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My Mom Is Disappointed in Me!

Puffy profiterols ready to be filled with savory cheese filling

My Mom is Disappointed in Me!

by Victoria Arlin

Last Summer something hit me. Something painful. A memory of how my Mom was very disappointed with me.

When I was still living in my parents’ house as a teenager, I was not very interested in cooking. I figured since cooking is my Mom’s passion and since my Mom was overly critical to me, there was no way I could do something good let alone eventually become her equal  in cooking.

In fact, my Mom’s cooking was so wonderful that she also cooked as a professional cook in a restaurant and people paid to enjoy her dishes. My Mom was a real chef!

So I strongly believed I couldn’t do anything good when it comes to cooking.

My disinterest in cooking apparently was a disappointment for my Mom.

One day she bitterly said to me:

“Victoria, you can’t cook at all. All you are capable of doing, is heating up prepared meals.”

She looked at me with contempt and probably felt shame that I am her daughter.

I pretend I didn’t care about what she just said, but a jolt of pain went through me and silently I vowed to myself never ever to consider my activities in the kitchen as ‘cooking’.

A couple of years later I left my parents’ house and did fine taking care of cooking my own meals.

During my time in college, even my roommates enjoyed what I prepared.

By the way, the fact that I earned my college degree and later on my Master of Science degree, was not enough to make my Mom express her being proud of me, but that is a different story.

Later on I got a good job, got married and my hubby never complaint about my concoctions in the kitchen.

But still I didn’t dare to call this real cooking. Such pretense, right.

Then after years of “just messing around with cooking” this Summer it hit me.

Hey I can cook, why not? I am a wonderful cook too!

I produce the most tasteful , wonderful  and fulfilling meals for my family.

For Christmas, the whole family comes to my dinner table and enjoy an eight course dinner European style.

I am very good at giving extensive dinner parties to entertain my friends too.

I also cook beyond my cultural cuisine and cook French, Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian, Vietnamese, Korean, South American, English, Italian and Middle Eastern, vegetarian, macrobiotic dishes as well.

So yes, I can cook!!!!

My 2013 Summer Fruit Pie: French Crust, soft Cake and Figs

And this Summer and Fall I took up many things to cook, all homemade: pasta, pizza, bread using my bread machine, many different cakes and pastries, special sauces, salads, smoothies and soups.

It was all wonderful.

In retrospect I didn’t do all this cooking catch up my skills and experience to prove my Mom a point.

I did all this cooking because I realized I allowed my Moms judgment to rob myself from good fun, creativity and satisfaction cooking can give me.

What an insight this was for me!

Now I finally feel totally free to give myself this great fun and also finally share in my Moms passion: great cooking!

Victoria Arlin.

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