Status Updates From What My Mother and I Don't ...

Yo nunca voy a perdonar a mi madre pero al menos se que hay mas gente que pasa por lo mismo.

The only thing I will say is that I felt an instant pit in my stomach when I read this essay.

i’m not really liking this

See I knew every short story was gonna make me cry but for some reason I still was caught off guard at how visceral my emotions felt

“I have told it [this story] to show how hard it must have been to be my mom” (126). “I would have mothered better” (128). “I was afraid that if I called her, she would talk and it would be too hard for me to love her after that… There is a gaping hole perhaps for all of us, where our mother does not match up with ‘mother’ as we believe it’s meant to mean and all it’s meant to give us” (131).

i’m already regretting reading thjs

Had to take a break today because this was a lot. Some of the stories are much shorter than others. Highly recommend for people with mommy issues

Oh you know, just an unemotional easy weekend audiobook :/

“The mind is as wonderful as it is wicked; it can choose to save us from our memories or bludgeon us with them.”

"It has taken me some work to discern the differences between the pain of hurting those I love and my fear of what I might lose. Hurting those we love is survivable. It is inevitable. I wish that I could have done less of it. But no matter how much of it I did, I would have never lost her." p. 56

10 pages in and I’ve already cried twice & tabbed 6 pages!

Have had one essay left that I completely forgot about! We’ll get there i swear

“Our mothers are our first homes, and that’s why we’re always trying to return to them. To know what it was like to have one place where we belonged. Where we fit.”

Melissa’s story comparison with Persephone‘a story made it that much more heartbreaking.

Trying not to cry is impossible

This essay really put my heart through the wringer. It’s so heartbreaking, to read about a young boy who felt obligated to hide his sexual abuse from his mother because he was the only male in her life that she could depend on. To have to tell the person you potentially loved that he was not gay, “not like you” in order to save him from ending his life. It was definitely an essay that brought tears to my eyes

I liked this author’s analogy of Demeter and Persephone’s relationship, how Demeter (her mother) often was overprotective of Persephone (her), but ultimately helpless when it came to Hades (life?) abducting her. I also liked how the author questioned whether her mother was simultaneously Demeter and Hades, showing that she was a protector but also the captor. “A daughter is wedded to her mother first” (44).

I liked this essay even if I don’t particularly relate to it. I like that the writer shifted her focus from her mother to her father a lot— especially since it drives the point that her father would always take her mother’s place and never allowed her mother a voice of her own. I like the frustration depicted of having a doting father because it often led to clashing heads when the daughter craves her mother :)

“It was terrifying and beautiful, like all my favorite journeys.”

The first essay already had me tearing up, I think this book is going to destroy me by the end of it… but in a beautiful way, you know?

This is a very good book. I think everyone should read this book.

I think everyone (especially women/daughters of other women) needs to drop what they're doing and go read Thesmophoria by Melissa Febos. Really read this book all together but this one story is just so masterfully written and heart wrenching even though I think its the happiest one thus far. Melissa Febos is certainly an author I will be looking into in the near future. That is all for now.

sooooo much traumatic stuff in here ):

143

somewhat relatable…:)

4 essays in and like 10 breaks needed

i have mommy issues. look away.

“If love is blind, love is also, apparently, deaf.”

🫶🏾

““Silence is what fills the gap between my mother and me. All of the things we haven’t said to each other, because it’s too painful to articulate.
What I want to say: I need you to believe me. I need you to listen. I need you.
What I say: nothing.
Nothing until I say everything. But articulating what happened isn’t enough. She’s still married to him. The gap widens.” 😪😞💔