Untangling: Mutual Disengagment (Chapter 55)
The peace and comfort I found when I visited my mother at Clarebridge faded. For months I had welcomed visits and reunions with my mother, but now those had stopped and I couldn’t figure out why. I only knew I dreaded returns almost as much as I had in those first early days of my mother’s locking down living six years before. My mother no longer lit up when I came into her room. Was it because of this, or did I have separate parallel feelings of being less enthusiastic about visiting her? My confusion and frustration were quickly (and sadly) explained with a visit to Katy, the remarkable aging therapist, whom I visited one last time before she moved. And one last time she explained exactly what was going on–mutual disengagement where my mother and I were untangling our relationship. You can hear me read an excerpt at this link: https://www.instagram.com/p/C6_UG8sAi9v/ .