The biggest indicator for a change in the future is effort made in the present

I’m often asked if I would ever reconcile with my mother. If I am being completely honest, there is no simple “one worded” answer to this question.

I am at peace with my choice to walk away from her. I do not carry regret with me or fear that when the day comes when she passes away I will suddenly wish I had continued a relationship with her all of these years. As a daughter I did all that I could for twenty-seven years to try and get her to see how badly she was hurting me; as a daughter, this was never my duty. What kept me entangled in the web of dysfunction that was our mother-daughter relationship was my sense of hope. That hope kept me in a fantasy world, unable to see clearly that it was never my role to change her, let alone teach her how to be a mother. My hope enabled her behavior.

Acceptance set me free.

Once I fully accepted that my past was never going to be different, I stopped fantasizing about “what could have been”; and then I accepted my mother for who she was, without fantasizing she would change, allowing me to break free from the cycle of abuse, dysfunction and chaos that kept pulling me towards her. I released myself from the struggles that I had once held onto tightly believing it was hope. It wasn’t hope after all, but rather my own resistance and refusal to accept what was.

I couldn’t remove myself from our negative cycle until I owned my role in it…resistance and refusal to accept her for who she was, not who I wanted her to be.

As I moved closer to acceptance, I realized that there lacked evidence that she would change as there was no effort, on her part, in the present. If we want our future to be different than what we are experiencing at present, then that shift begins now.

The biggest indicator for a change in the future is effort made in the present.

Acceptance showed me the way out, the way towards growth, healing, and peace.

Acceptance was my first step towards a different future.