Last week on Substack, I posted a piece about whether the Roys from the TV show Succession love each other. I spoke of my own journey of coming to realize that you can love someone and still hurt them, and how this revelation has set me free from some unrealistic expectations. This has truly been one of the most profound lessons I’ve learned in my life and has deeply transformed my relationships. That’s why I wrote about it and wanted to share.
But there’s a part of me that feels embarrassed because it seems so basic. Love doesn’t equal perfection–it is flawed, inconsistent, and wild. Why is it hitting me so hard at almost 46 years old? I’ve been noticing this in myself, that I am starting to feel shame for certain things because of my age. There’s a part of this that is internalized ageism because age is not a determinant on anything, to attach any “shoulds” on any age is unexamined ageism. But there’s also a part of this that is life with religious trauma, which often means arrested development. I grew up believing God is Love is Someone who created me rotten to the core and smites me to hell. How can I shame myself for being just a little bit messed up about love? Of course I am unlearning and relearning well into my 40s, in some ways my life did not start until a few years ago.
My family watched Sixth Sense for family movie night over Christmas. I insisted that my 17 year old who has never seen it MUST see it because its iconic twist ending is a reference he needs to get in pop culture. He disagreed with me, and told me nobody his age is talking about Sixth Sense, which is fair, but I made him watch it anyway. Thoughts upon rewatching: wow Haley Joel Osment did a fantastic job as a child actor. And my husband and I couldn’t believe how much we resonated with the mother watching it as parents! When we first watched it in the 90s, pre-kids, we couldn’t comprehend the way we do now, what it feels like to watch your child struggle, and we didn’t appreciate how the mom loved and supported her child despite not knowing his secret. She never punished him, and believed him when he told his truth. It’s quite the example of stellar parenting.
M Night Shyamalan wrote this story when he was much younger. He clearly had a vision of the story of this boy who sees ghosts and incorporates the surprise ending, the ghost who the audience assumes is the counselor, throughout the film. Perhaps for him, the mother in the story, who loves so beautifully, is just a basic backdrop to the story. I don’t know his personal life, but maybe his mother was like that and he just assumes that’s how a mother would behave. But for people who grew up with a manipulative mother, who punishes and blames a child who has any behavior outside of social norms, the way Cole’s mother responded to him, with love and compassion, is truly mind blowing.
This is life after religious trauma. Certain things other people take for granted, can feel mind blowing. It can take years and even decades to claw your way out of a groove carved by childhood fundamentalism, shaped in the formative years of our lives. And these revelations come as we go through different seasons of life, like parenting, opening our eyes to new and expansive ways of being. So I am trying to let go of the shame of feeling like I’m only just getting it later in life, but embrace that perhaps life is simply like this, we learn, we grow, and it’s never too late.
Yes:
just the way Cole was BELIEVED
when he said he saw dead people.