Lyrical Logic

I told myself I would never lie to you (other than about my name). So I’m not going to start now. I drove to Nashville on 5/28 in anticipation of going to see Reba play after the Music City Rodeo. Y’all know how much she means to me. I was desperately trying to chase after a feeling of love and support. Really, I just needed a good hug (which I still haven’t gotten as I write this on 5/29). Well, I got down there, and almost immediately turned around.

It was about 10 hours there, if you include the road construction and the pit stops. I was in town for about two hours before I had a massive anxiety attack/cPTSD episode. I was literally the woman crying in her car in the Walmart parking lot because she was so overwhelmed. Yep, that was me. And the reality is that this seems to be the new “normal” of my life. Random breakdowns in public or in private over little things that just don’t make sense to other people.

For context, 5/27 I saw my therapist. Nothing unusual, our normal appointment. But it was the first time in a long time I’d seen her in person because she is only in office one day a week and I was unable to get appointments that day until recently. As such, I finally brought her the copy of my book that I had gotten her. Considering she’s the reason the book exists, she deserves to read its contents (she’s heard a lot of them from me, but it still felt like I needed to give it to her). We were talking about my boyfriend and how I was doing really well with being with someone new, but I am not doing okay with the thought of getting to know his family.

I miss my in-laws. So much so that I’ve had the active thought of ending my relationship because I cannot go through growing close to another family and then lose them again. Don’t worry, I won’t end it for that reason. But we are waiting a while before I meet his parents. But the reason that I am struggling so much with it is that they taught me what it means to be in a family. One that isn’t toxic and dysfunctional and where their favorite past time is making Liz feel bad about herself. I mourn the loss of my family more than I do the loss of my marriage. Crazy, I know. But when I tried to explain why I was struggling, the only thing I could do was read from my book, because I had already written it.

The mom I want to be,
For a long time it was you.
You never treated me any different than your own, 
You were what I never had, 
Until you were suddenly all I knew. 

The mom I want to be,
Held me while I cried. 
You were supportive,
Encouraging, 
Loving. 
Until all you did was ignore me. 

The mom I want to be, 
Did anything for your children.
You were an example, 
Everything I dreamed of being, 
Until you became my biggest fear. 

The mom I want to be, 
Is really modeled after you.
No matter how it ended,
No matter how I feel,
The mom I want to be, 
The woman I want to be, 
Is you. 

It’s the one poem that makes me cry every single time I look at it. Probably, in my opinion, the most gut wrenching one I’ve written. And it got me all in the feelings, and so my depression convinced me that I couldn’t stay home and not go to Nashville because then I would be like my own mother. I could see Reba perform and for a moment have a “mom” singing to me. I’ve been thinking a lot about the scene in the Reba show in Season 4 Episode 22.

Cheyenne has a drinking problem, and Reba catches her pouring a glass of wine. They have a conversation about if Cheyenne has a problem or if she doesn’t. And the scene ends with Cheyenne saying she’s doesn’t know what to do. Reba says “the first thing you’re going to do is put the drink down.” She walks around the kitchen island, and as she wraps Cheyenne up in a hug and says “and here’s the second thing.” That hug has healed me more times than I care to count.

That hug, the feeling that that hug elicits, is a feeling I’ve been chasing my whole life. I found it once. In my mother-in-law. Her hugs were magic. I could sit in one all day. But when I was in Nashville, I happened to run into them. They were kind, and she gave me a hug. I excused myself, threw up in the bathroom of the place we were in (not together), and left. I drove straight home after finding a Walmart so I could sob in the car and gather enough of myself to make the drive. Another 10 hours in the car. Hours of crying in the car while listening to 90s country and all of my Reba favorites.

I won’t be able to see her live. It makes me sad, but I couldn’t stay in that city. Getting home at 4:05 AM and waking up by 8:00 AM because my cats were rough housing and the lawn care people were out and about mowing. I haven’t been able to nap. I’ve just been cleaning and scrolling through TikTok. Not dealing with the source of the problem.

I’m not sure how to deal with the problem. The problem is I don’t trust myself to get close to another family. The problem is that I feel like I don’t belong anywhere. I don’t have that mom to turn to when things are going wrong. I don’t have the one thing I want more than anything. I want to be able to have that hug. And I’m just afraid I’m never going to find it again.