love is a dance.

love is a dance.

love is a dance, the steps of which i have learned from my mother. i saw how she loved and before i knew, i was dancing along with her. i must have started dancing before i ever heard the music. i didn't realize that occasionally we'd be off-beat until much much later.

sometimes i wonder how i would have turned out, had my mother completed her healing before having me. before marrying. sometimes i wonder how far along she would be if she weren't responsible for my father's healing, in a society that discourages recognizing emotional vulnerability, let alone fostering the gentleness needed for healing.

sometimes i wonder if she would have been compelled to heal without us.

i hear so much talk around me that glorifies leaving toxic family behind, and just as with everything else that i am told to do, everything else that is supposedly good for me, i am hesitant to heed to that advice.

i don't want to admit that i've been abused in certain respects. i don't want to hold anyone responsible, and i don't like that the word abuse imples the abuser knew what they were doing. my mother has told me so many things that i cannot forget as long as i live, both for the better and worse. i was loved, unconditionally, and she did her goddamn best to not put me through what my grandma put her through.

but she learned the foundations of her dance from her mother. and her mother loved her the only way she knew how. clumsily, stepping all over her toes, and then getting mad that her feet were in the way.

my mother tried her best. she's still trying her best. she's changed so much from when i was fourteen. fifteen was only five years ago. she's still changing. she's relearning the fundamentals of how to move. it's taking her a long time, it still hurts when she lashes out sometimes, but despite all the hurt she's causing me, i can't bring myself to even consider leaving her behind. because in every way that she can, she shows that she cares. cares enough to change.

i thought for a long time that i was going to be the one that stops the cycle of generational trauma. i see now that my mother started on that path long before me. and that path was only possible because my grandma decided that she would not do to her daughters what her parents did to her, and make sure all of her daughters made it beyond middle school. and, though i do not wish to have children, if i were to do so, they would have to carry on what she started.

we must all heal together, despite each other. we must insist on apologizing every time we inevitably step on each others' toes as we relearn our steps.

i do not dance today the way i learned from my mother. she does not dance the way her mother taught her. we learn how to love, and then we must learn how to love better.

(i love her, but the closer we are, the more we'll step on each other. i still think i'd love her better if i were a little farther from her. in other words, i'm moving out.)

- the star-splitter