Just like in the book I read, these reasons we are racking our brains to come up with or the reasons our children gave us just don’t add up to valid reasons for estrangement.

The relationship I have with my FOO is full of drama, lots of heated arguments. The worst of it played out last year and I became more distant from them. But, I can’t fathom going totally estranged with my mother. I don’t want that for myself. Even if she’s a toxic mother, I want to feel like I have a mother.

With my sons, I have been completely nice. I am blown away that he really just didn’t love me. For 22 years, it was nothing but great. Then he gets serious with a partner, and she had to have been the driving force. Still, he completely turned on us. It’s so hard for me to fathom.

The pain from this keeps surging in me. Every few hours, I start spinning. I’m trying to find distractions and practice being grateful for whatever I have.

I want to keep hope that one day things will mend, but I also accept that this really happened.