I am living a double life. Really. Having just returned from a trip to visit my mom again in Nebraska, I am, as always, processing the paradox and choosing to hold myself together because my mom doesn’t deserve my angst toward my old life in her red, conservative and very triggering (for me) town. Mom is 83 and has dementia that is progressing by the day. I know her well. I want to be with her when I can and while she still knows me. This trip my son wanted to go for a visit with his youngest who hadn’t seen her for a while. My mom was so deeply touched by the visit and my son and grandson loved spending time with their Nebraska family. My husband was there doing trainings for the business my dad started that is now belongs to my brother and nephew. A lot of roots and life well connected exist for me there.

As everyone interacted with each other while we were there, I was able to be my genuine self but sometimes it felt as if that part of me was floating in the room for safety. I am so different that I always feel invisible and uninteresting to those present. At this age I don’t mind it all that much. My empathic, highly sensitive soul stays hidden in the bejeweled cavernous places below ground because exposure is too much risk. I am honestly just used to it and I have chosen it. I’m nice, I’m kind and I’m loving, so I feel good about that, it’s just that I’m shallow, temporal and often feel alone. It’s a weird kind of sad gladness if there is such a thing.

I know in my bones that making these visits to be with her is holy work. Hard work but also really important. Maybe when James said that pure and undefiled religion involved the visit of… widows in their distress, this what he was talking about. I like to think it is.

I took my grandson to the park on our last day there. A beautiful sun-filled day and as I exited my car saw a woman I hadn’t spoken to since leaving town in 2005. A sweet, kind Christian woman who sees the world as figured out already. We reconnected and I reminisced but when politics entered the chat… LGBTQ curriculum in public schools … I reoriented toward the grandson to safely exit without screaming and making a scene. On the way to the car I passed two Christian men discussing the deeper concerns of their all figured out lives with each other.

I knew one of the men from my time in church with him long ago. With zero desire to acknowledge his presence, I quickly put my grandson in the car and left. I know he would have been nice to me, even excited to see me but there was no way I was eager to reignite some religiously traumatic memories. It was a boundary of self care that always serves me well. That said, by the time I returned to the hotel, I felt like I was holding myself together by a thread because the past had pushed up into the present in spite of my best efforts to restrain it. I started to feel irritated by the simplest request and felt like I wasn’t able to be present even on the surface. In a few hours I felt just exhausted. The next morning I was able to have a conversation with my husband and son and that helped me get back into the present and move on. Now I’m here processing it in writing which always helps.

I have resolved that I do indeed live a double life. In being supportive of my mom I have resolved that I am being authentic and true to my own self. I am grateful that I have done a lot of work – in therapy and on my own to get to this place where I am able to do it. Going back to a place where there are numerous occasions for triggering events though has been a challenge. It is always a road with twists, turns and a lot of sadness when I am forced to revisit painful places. At the same time it is a road of beauty and deepening gladness. My mom’s joy with my grandson was exquisite joy. Comforting joy. It is so worth it.