Words

I'm constantly surprised by the feedback I get from my blog. Up until this morning it has always been very positive and certainly feeds my ego.

This morning though, I realized that I had hurt someone with my words, someone I hadn't intended to hurt, someone that I had no idea even knew I had a blog. And I feel bad for it, guilty even.

Not because what I said wasn't true. But because what I said hurt them and for that I am sorry.

My former mother in law read on this blog that I referred to her family as cold and WASPy. I was comparing them to the grooms family in My Big Fat Greek Wedding. The irony, to me, is that I was not the person to originally make that comparison. Their son was.

I am writing this now because of my sadness. I am sad that my words were hurtful and that I hope she uses that pain to take a long, hard look at her life and to examine why I felt that way, why I may not have felt welcomed into their family. I spent 10 years as their daughter and it was not always a smooth relationship. Hers was the approval I most wanted in my marriage but yet somehow I always seemed to feel like an outsider in their family.

(Twylia - a hint would be how you acted when I wanted to stay with you the summer my mother was dying)

My blog readers wont know the drama behind our relationship and because it is such a sensitive thing I wont rehash our issues out on this blog. Her hurt feelings have made me reconsider what I say about others and I believe that is a positive thing.

I don't know if she still reads this blog. She may not. I probably wouldn't if I were her.

I found out she had hurt feelings because she posted a family picture on facebook and commented that she was having dinner with her "Cold, reserved and WASPy family". It's ironic to me to that in that picture is her other former daughter in law. Apparently she still gets invited for dinner. I haven't even gotten a phone call or email from her in almost a year except the one time she told me she couldn't be my friend on facebook because she never went on it.

Truly it's not that we ever had a bad relationship or that they are icy people. Indeed, I loved my former mother in law very much and always wanted her approval, desperately so. I wanted to feel like she loved me back.

And I am sure to others they are not icy people, they are not cold or distant. They are warm, loving people to others around them and to many, many friends and members of their family.

But our relationship did not start out well and I suspect it was always tainted because of that.

So, Twylia, if you are still reading this blog, I am sorry I hurt your feelings and that I called you cold and reserved and icy. You are not truly any of those things to other people. But I don't think you ever really liked my very much and your behavior toward me during my marriage to your son, during our divorce and after has never been very warm, accepting or inviting except in short instances. For my part in that I am truly sorry.

I still love you, even if you aren't my Other Mother anymore. You are the only other woman I ever called Mom.