Grey Areas: One Last Cry

Grey area. Did anyone invent a way to escape them? The situations between black and white, where you have zero clue and zero control over anything—including the person inside it with you.

This isn’t about relationships, but life situations in general. This is about the night I gave myself permission to cry my heart out until I couldn’t physically handle it anymore.

Most of you would think this is about to be a follow-up to the Isak story, which, in my opinion, is the only grey area I don’t give a single fuck about in life.

What I’m about to write is way bigger than me, romance, friendship, or any other gift in life. It’s about family, and how even the happiest ones can give you the deepest wounds without knowing. Motherhood in particular.

As a person, I’m deeply grateful to my mom—to the point where, as a daughter, I refuse to admit I have issues with her. I guess that’s what we call mommy issues. So how do you deal with that? How do you deal with hating and loving the same person? But not just any person—the person who gave you life, yet sometimes made you wish they hadn’t.

Someone who is peaceful but also conflicting. Someone who wants to treat you right but always ends up wrong. And finally, someone who likes the way they see themselves in you—but not fully, because you remind them of who they could’ve been, or who they should be.

This isn’t just the point of view of a wounded daughter, but also the point of view of a powerless mother. It’s a mutual feeling.

We are so opposite that we end up being very alike. It hurts us both.

She likes to hear what she wants to hear. I like to hear the truth and nothing but the truth—we’re both afraid of being hurt.

She has deep-rooted goodness in her. I have patience for humanity—but not for each other.

She constantly tries to show me she listens because she loves me. I’m constantly trying to make her love listening to me-We both fail and end up hurting each other more.

She unknowingly sees the version of herself she could’ve been if she hadn’t sacrificed all of her being to please people—a version that’s bolder and wiser. I see the version I could’ve been if I hadn’t realized at a young age that I had to emotionally raise myself because my mother wasn’t able to. Now, both of us are trying to raise each other.

How can I approach that? How can I live through that without losing my shit over her every time—and regretting it when I remember how fragile she is? I just wanted a mom I could rely on.

They say, be gentle to your mom—it’s her first time living too. I deeply agree. But it’s also my first time on this earth. I’m 21 years old, trying to keep up and understand the emotional chaos of a 55-year-old who should be teaching me about life instead.

It’s like I spent my most important years focusing on how to be better and less me around my mom, so I could finally feel free with her—like most daughters do. I am a very flawed human. I see that in myself. But I’ve always been open to change. I’m always on the front line of a self-acceptance and development class. But does she see it?

How could I be the entire problem when I’m just entering life? I literally haven’t done anything wrong that would make people around me feel like I’m not a good or worthy person. So why does she keep dumping all of this on me? All of my knowledge came the hard way—because I had to seek it, or else I would’ve died at 13.

I try, try, and try until my ears start to ring, my stomach twirls, and my gut hurts—and then I lose my shit. Just like now, in the middle of writing this.

I can’t deny how much I get my mother. I’ve tried to put myself in her shoes to the point where I understand her. And still, I can only speak for myself. So this is going to be my point of view, in the safe space I’ve created for myself. I’m not asking her to let it go—she always tells her side. So here, I’ll be telling mine.

I’ve cried until I couldn’t open my eyes. I’ve cried until I had to stop myself from cutting off my breathing. I’ve cried until my sisters had to wake my father so he could calm me down. But nothing could’ve stopped me at that point.

Last night was the night I finally decided to let go—let go of this cycle and let go of trying to fix what wasn’t broken by me. All I told myself was: one last cry. Give it one last cry. Be as dramatic as you need. Be the teenager you couldn’t be when you were trying to pull her in.

I’m not giving up on my mother—I never will. I’m just going to stop trying to force my opinions and principles on her. At a certain age, certain people can’t change—and my mother is one of them. It’s not my place to be her mother or her therapist. I tried. She’s an amazing person, but her trauma is way too deep for me to make her understand that it’s okay.

She’s so there for me—but she’s also so not at the same time. My guards are up constantly, waiting for her to point out a flaw of mine so I can attack. But they’re also up because she admires me so much, I start to wonder if I’m even who I think I am.

My mother sees both her flaws and her potential strength in me—to the point that it conflicts her emotions toward me. She loves me, but she cannot force herself to be in love with me.

And so I have to let this go. I have to do this for me, and give myself another shoulder of my own to cry on—so I can move on and live the life I want. The one that includes her.

I no longer aim for deep friendship. I just want peace from her. And for that, I have to give peace too. So I will. I don’t care how many times I have to swallow the truth, close my ears, or pretend she’s doing the right thing. I’m just going to be there, like I’m supposed to.

Grey areas are one of the things I haven’t learned how to deal with. I love my mother to the point I want to go back in time and ask her family to treat her right and protect her from them—but I also hate her to the point I wish I wasn’t born to feel this way. I could never not feel these emotions at once. They say with time, you’re going to have to learn how to forgive.

Maybe I will, maybe not. All I know is that time is never going to wipe these scars from my soul. And I’m going to have to live with this until the day I die—and just learn to be a better person from it.

Damage is damage, and we can never reverse it.