You're Soooo BEAUTIFUL MAMA!!

Back Side of A Mutual Mirror - A New Year Story!

My girlfriend Dharma has been struggling with her relationship with her husband ever since I met her 5 years ago. They have a daughter that is the same age as mine. So our kids have been buddies from the beginning. Our children are one of the bonding factors and symbols of our relationship. We share a mothering space and children that are similar in age and other ways. When it came to her husband and her, they appeared like an ordinary couple. I saw them together a lot. There were quite a few times when I thought she and I would be hanging out. Then she arrived and her hubby would be with her. I thought they enjoyed being together and I came to accept that. It took me a while to figure out that she didn’t have a car of her own and so relied on her spouse to get her around in many ways. We went to parties together, out dancing on a number of occasions and Barry was sometimes there in the mix. They were not a lovey-dovey couple but the fact that he was there, gave me no indication that they were having such horrible problems on the home front and between them. Sam, their daughter, never complained nor did she show any signs of trouble between her parents.

Yet, when Dharma and I got together, her expressions, thoughts and feelings about Barry were neither positive nor happy. My concern was she was caught up in a marriage and life that was not nourishing her spirit. It became clear that she was clinging to it because of the financial and material conveniences and necessities it offered. She is a doctor, with her own practice, and keeping up with the expenses of running a practice in a prestigious business location is a luxury that her marriage afforded her. Barry is an engineer and accountant so he kept her books and also paid for the business space. These and other factors made it difficult for her to walk away from a dark and fearful marriage that carried a deception of security.

I totally understood her dilemma, though. Many women get trapped in a cycle that becomes emotionally devastating, physically challenging, mentally depleting and life draining over time and in turn creating poor health – mind, body, heart and soul. Leaving can be the hardest task. I gave her the love and support, the ear that she needed, positive thoughts of hope and empowerment and enjoyed our relationship and the one our kids had developed. They get along so well and are relatively mature in their interactions with one another. No drama, no entanglements – although those are natural parts to growing up. We never have to break up fights or intervene any arguments. Their relationship is pretty cool, so we both liked that and fed its spirit. Over the years we’ve known each other, we’ve watched them grow and become the individual female spirits they are in this lifetime.

About six weeks ago, Dharma tells me that she is leaving Barry. I am surprised but also delighted in hearing her begin to sing a new tune. I was excited for her because it was a shift in her communications with me and a sign of some movement, of getting unstuck. I was thrilled because it meant that she could begin to shed some of the baggages she carried. She is about 55 years old and doesn’t look her age at all. She looks far younger. She’s also a Leo - a fire sign, but I’ve always wondered where her fire was. I could never feel it, nor see it. There has always been this sluggishness about her, she speaks in a slow, dragging voice which made me want to say “get it out and over with” on many occasions. She's not the energetic girlfriend I can go running with or take a whole foreign delegation by storm with. She’s rather old fashion, slow in movement yet up and out there but with a sneaky sense that she of carrying a heavy load. Hearing that she was finally leaving Barry, was shocking news but hopefully it would give her a chance for a fresh new start and an lift to her energy frequency.

I soon learned – through her choices – and got the opportunity to reflect on what it really means to move forward. I have been captivated and driven to really look into and meditate on what “moving forward” entails and the ways it is displayed and pronounced in our gestures, choices, words and even physical movements. When she told me that she and her daughter were moving into the house of a friend that recently died, I got chills through my body. Somehow it didn’t sit well with me. It seemed misaligned, unfitting, of discord, even disrespectful of the dead. It brought me to a cross-way between the past and the future, where life and death stand back to back. That’s the best way I can describe my reaction. I am certain many would not consider that piece of the puzzle relevant while others may naturally ponder this. It all depends on one's ability to pierce the visible walls of life. Yet, those were my internal responses and I consider them relevant and noteworthy. The way I see and process this through the bigger picture is - this friend passed-over less than 2 months ago, she lived in that house for 20 years or so, she was attached to that house when she was alive. She took pride in decorating and beautifying her home as a Libra woman. She sweat, worked hard and invested a lot, went through a great deal, endured her own share of drama. In fact one of the contributing factors to her death was the stress around loosing her home in this economy. Sadly she dealt with it internally. She worked long hours and did what she could to catch up on the arrears of her mortgage payments. She also had many sleepless nights along with emotionally & mentally tormenting moments, worrying while restlessly tossing and turning. She was single, without partner, had one adult daughter that lived in another country. Plus she had battled with cancer living in that house, and succeeded in going into remission. So much had happened in that house and she was well aware of them because they were friends first.

If we are aware of the power and movement or non-movement of energy, we will understand that material things have spirits of their own; material things carry their own vibration. Much of what we take for granted, every thing around us, vibrates on some frequency. A coffee table is vibrating if it derived from a tree. Get my drift? Anyway, I am certain that the spirit of her friend is still fresh and alive somehow in that house. On the other hand, I am not certain that I can settle down and sleep at peace with all the memories of my friend in the walls around me. What’s even more deeply heart breaking is that her daughter was able to save the house from going into foreclosure. But it was after her mother had died stressing over loosing the house. Was it too late? Could she have saved her mother? She never told her daughter. She kept it all to her self. Her daughter found out after the death of her mother. The cause of death? Stress. Brain hemorrhage.

Anyway, I have been in an uncomfortable space around my relationship with Dharma. I’ve naturally withdrawn from her and actually did so before she told me she was leaving her husband. I just decided that I needed to let go and move on and in doing so she may have to be one of those that gets left behind. No hard feelings. I love and appreciate her and enjoyed knowing her but she no longer fits into the landscape or portrait of my life unfolding. This is difficult because we have kids that are friends. So I decided that it is important that I allow them to spend time with each other nonetheless. My home is still open to sleepovers and visits and they are welcome to cultivate their friendship

This made me think hard about WHO I AM and more so WHO I AM BECOMING. Before I became a mother, New Year’s Eve was my favorite time of the holiday season. I would always spend the count down with my lover and loved ones, dressed up or dressed down but always glowing from within, exuding hope for a new year, excited about a new start. It is 2011 and I am home with my daughter and her friend. And I am comfortable and would rather be no place else. We were planning on going to a friends but I was too tired to drive to Baltimore. I was happy to be at home snuggled up. But after this I have to ask myself, am I too comfortable with this current role? Have I gone to an extreme side of being introspective and at home with my family? Have I compromised my social life too much and starved myself from the constant interactions with many others? Am I afraid of being with the differences of others?


On the other hand, my girlfriend Dharma prefers to be out in a crowd with friends and strangers, where the music is loud, while intoxicating moments build up, the glitter and glamour are high and a group of lost people swim in the shallow waters of their collective consciousness, they momentarily experiencing happiness, joy, or even sadness and pain – all together. I think that’s awesome. I am not mad. However the punch to my story is that she always goes out, on the go. She’s an external being, while I am more internal. She works six days a week running her practice, then goes out a few days after work for various reasons; she has a ritual of going ballroom dancing every Sunday, the day she is off. So she did this while she was married and shared a home with her husband and daughter. Is she compromising her relationship with her child (family) to chase her habitual outings and obsession about being with other people. Is she running away from seeing and being alone? Is that some childhood ghost in her closet that still scares the crap out of her?

A change in one area of our lives ripples a wave of change and a shift in many other parts. Now that she is separated, she is still trying to live that way and maintain the old lifestyle while she was married. This concerns me because now that her husband is not around to be at home with his daughter, take up the slack, she began to either leave her daughter at home alone or with a family member or friend. Unfortunately, this child is in the middle of the divorce war zone so it’s not the same between she and her dad either. They are already in court over custody and child abuse accusations with social services intervening.

As well, should I begin to fine tune my social skills and rebuild a social life and go out more, giving my child the space and time away from me? How can I rebuild a new life that is more balanced with being a mother? Not compromising neither?


Is Dharma afraid to face herself. (A balancing question: Am I spending too much time facing myself and less time facing others?) She is so uncomfortable with being still and spending the down time necessary for wholeness and peace; for finding herself, for hearing her own cry, for feeling her own pain. Shortly after they moved into the house, Sam got sick. He was sick for an entire week. And that entire week he spent across town with a surrogate grandfather. Mama Dharma was too busy to take care of her child. And this is a common scenario single mothers face.

One thing that our deceased friend said to me that stands out today is, Dharma never really parented her children. She told me she left them with other people to do that. She has two older kids from her previous marriage. Sam is her youngest. I know that she has a challenge being a mother. But I know that we all have challenges in the roles we play in life. Being a parent is probably the greatest one because it involves another human and requires our response-ability. She recently said, "I never wanted to be a single parent. If I had known I would have never had Sam." I heard the fear in her voice. In fact, I was aware that she was now facing her deepest kept fear. When we don’t readily address and acknowledge our fears we are then forced to face them. I can understand just how challenging and scary it is for her right now.

Is Dharma ready for change? No but there appears to be an incredible force nudging and guiding her nonetheless. I’ve seen her attempts to avoid it. And this is incredibly moving for me because I can now see the many ways and behavior patterns I display in my own resistance to change. I know that she is going through a dark tunnel right now. I’ve been there. I know it well. I went through a separation and divorce with a child in the middle. I can see so much through her story. I want so much to make her transition easier for her from the experience and wisdom I have gained through my own. I so much want to give her tips to avoid unnecessary struggles and bickering between she and her child’s father. I want to give her the clues and the answers to her many questions, I want to offer her my lap so she can lay her head on it; I want to give her permission to cry and to release the painful data she has stored in the hard drive of her heart. I want to help her understand the beauty of being a mother and show her a room full of the treasures that come with parenting alone or sharing a space alone with your child. I want to help her begin the journey of forgiving herself and her husband NOW rather than later. I want to help her remember the love she has for her child’s father and to hold that in the forefront. I want to feed her the gifts of stillness - I know more than her - so she can balance it with her movements. And I want to take some of her external movement energy to balance my internal. :-) I don’t feel that she is ready to receive. I see that she is avoiding me because she knows who I am, where I am and where I am coming from and that this will lead her to the door where she will have to see herself.

Above all, I am grateful for her friendship. I am grateful she allowed me to peek into a small window of her life to see inside. I am blessed that she is the backside of the mutual mirror, we share. We are both mothers but we just do it differently. As I write this story, I realize that this is more complex and complicated than I can actually explain. I see it as a seminar, intensive workshop or a major practical life course. I as student and teacher at once. I choose to learn and take away from the experience rather than react to it and allow it to take away from me. There are many details that I cannot explain here due to the lack of time and space.

In closing, let me say that spending this New Year’s Eve with my daughter and those I love was more important than going out and leaving my child someplace other than home. My friend Dharma chose to spend New Year’s Eve attending a party with a friend. After speaking with her in brief around 8:00pm, she was to call me back to let me know if Sam was coming over. I did not get a call back after calling and texting her. At 10:15pm my daughter has received a call from Sam to say that she is at the train station, I arrived to pick her up at 10:30pm. There she stood alone, with a suitcase and a toy in a box larger than her suitcase. I was not very happy with that picture. My daughter say’s, "Mommy that’s dangerous!" I agree, I said! I would never let my child travel across town on the train after dark and its New Year’s Eve with more freaks out than ever and darkness lurking in its many ways.