The In Between of Who I Was and Who I Am

Terri Lomax (0:01)

On this week's episode of Cultivating HER. Space. Okay, so girl, let me know if you can relate to this. So, I grew up with this belief that family is family, period, right? There are certain relationships that you don't just walk away from. Like, you could be angry, you could be disappointed, you could be hurt, whatever, and it's still family. You basically got to tolerate that shit, right? And this especially came up for me with my mom, and cutting her off was not... For a long time, it was not an option for me until, girl, my 30th birthday.

So, just to kind of set the stage, right? Growing up, I grew up seeing a lot of toxicity of relationships. People who were not happy in marriages, people who were being abused, people who were in dysfunction and miserable in relationships, but they stayed together, right? And the underlying message that I absorbed was family stays by any means necessary no matter what's happening around. You forgive, you tolerate, and you keep holding space because it's family, right? That's your mama, that's your daddy, that's your cousin, that's your auntie, whatever, right? And so, if you've listened to the podcast at all, if you're new here, hey, welcome, but if you listen to the podcast, you know, I've had some mommy issues, right? I've had a very tumultuous relationship with my mom, and there's been a lot of betrayal, broken trust, secrets being shared, inappropriate things being asked of me, and I tolerated a lot from my mom more so than I think I would like a friend or a romantic partner. It was like, oh, that's my mom, you know? And then she told me things like, you only get one mom, you know? I would never cut my mom off, I would never do things to my mom if she was living, stuff like that. And so, I would even tell my friends sometimes what would happen, and Dom, they would be like, girl, you're better than me, because if that was my mom, I would have cut her off, like, you're better than me. I'm like, cut your mom off, like, that's crazy.

But, when I turned 30, right, of course, this big milestone birthday, my husband at the time, he had taken me on this great birthday trip, and all my friends and everything were reaching out, and my grandmother recently passed away, and there were some things surrounding her death that really irritated me, and like, I was very frustrated by it, but I was still showing up. It's like, you know, the daughter. And when it comes to my mom, like how the things that happened around my grandmother's death, there were just things that happened and I was like, mom, what are you doing? But I was still respectful, I was still me. So then my 30th birthday comes and my mom doesn't call me.

And it's not just like, oh, she forgot.

You know, she was busy, she was on vacation. She didn't call me. And then I ended up hearing that she told her husband not to call me on my birthday. And I was like, what? Like, I just I did not understand this. And I was just thinking, like, what did I, first of all, out of all the things I've done, I didn't raise the kids, I didn't gave you grace. You know, I didn't let you back into my life when you weren't being, you weren't showing up as a mother should. Right. But to me, even though for some people, that may not be a big deal. I don't know, like, our birthday is a big deal for you if someone forgets it or they intentionally don't call.

Dominique Broussard (3:04)

I mean, yes, and, but I'm involved. So we can come back to that. But yes, I get what you're saying. Yes, yes, yes.

Terri Lomax (3:10)

Yeah, I'm interested to hear that. And for me, like, I get it. People forget, I've had people forget my birthdays. And I was like, oh, family members. But to me, it was like the intentionality. Like you actually tried to hurt me. You were being petty and you were like, oh, mind you, I called her on her birthday. I'm not going to call her on her birthday. And I'm also going to tell someone else that she has a rapport with her husband who was like a father figure to my siblings. I'm going to tell him not to call you too because I got my own stuff going on. So at that point, after everything, it was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back. After everything that happened in our relationship, all the harm, all the betrayal, to me, I was like, bro, if you're going to sit up here, you're going to intentionally try to like be mean and hurt me intentionally and then have someone else hop on the bandwagon. I was like, okay, mom, like, I'm good. I'm good on you. Cause that's just, that's corny to me. Like, what are we doing? Yeah.