Healing....

Beginning to write memoirs and spill my emotions into my new blog has helped me to replace the bitterness and hurt, that I thought were immovable, with a renewed love for my MIL based on all the good that she did for me as a younger person. She is the best at nurturing that I have ever seen. Which was really good for me for many years, and filled that void that I had from my original parents. It may have been a little unbalanced, so that my FIL didn't really get a chance to fill that "dad" void, because she did so much nurturing... but that is being remedied now, thanks to my changes, and my love of myself. I can stand up to him, and he is feeling free to be honest with me on a less adversarial, more friendly basis. At least for a while lately. I hope it continues for the most part. I am truly enjoying talking with him lately. Not the content, but the atmosphere of our relationship. It seems so conducive to happiness in being our own two selves, yet co-existing!
My MIL on the other hand, is having a rough time being around me yet. Let alone talking honestly. I plan to do my best to love her out of that. I am so grateful for the love she shared with me in my teenage years that I want to pay her back now. Maybe that's part of what hurt her so badly was that she thought that I was completely rejecting all the love that she had given me. I believe that her idea of love is wrapped up in trying to "help" a person by sharing what has worked for giving her happiness, and she doesn't get that it may take something else completely to give someone else happiness....
I think I completely threw her for a loop by telling her thanks for helping me grow up, and now "I don't need you anymore", in so many words. Maybe she felt used. Taken advantage of. That really lines up with how many times she's brought up that out of context comment I made about her having been my "nanny, housekeeper, and best friend all in one".... Ouch. When I think of it in those terms, I really feel for her. I think she truly believes that I took what I needed from her, and decided to throw her away after that. Yikes. That must've been hell to accept. Of course she didn't ask me if that's what I was doing... she did assume. But she is human. And I have accepted that now.
I am ready to let her know that I can handle her emotions now. I think. I don't want to have her blow up at me, feel hurt, and then get angry again because I'm hurt again..... I just have to think of it in the context
of giving us a second chance at a relationship that some people never get.