Damage Just Never Heals

APRIL 1st, 2026 – HAPPY NEW YEAR!

I wish it WAS a NEW anything but yet again it's the same OLD shit.

Yesterday, in French class  every time I would TRY to interject something about my journeys I would get this vibe of "oh no, not HER again" while the MAN rambled on about HIS trips to ENGLAND and so forth and everyone seemed engaged.

I decided since next week is the final bon voyage to the Bon Voyage class, I would just skip that one    - let them have it and I will keep my GOOD TIPS to myself.  Good luck assholes. 

Question:  Did ANY of YOU - French teacher Erica included - EVER plan and perfectly execute not one, but TWO SOLO trips to France where you DROVE A STICKSHIFT alone through France?  A Single White Woman dining alone, attending the Son-et-Lumiere she pre-booked from home, alone, managing to refill and WASH her car alone, handling the freeway system with it's fees and confusions and kilometers and strange signage, and getting off the tourist path into real France where NO ONE speaks English and they aren't just pretending they don't - all with far less French than I have built up now. 

After returning from  my EPIC trip to France - my FIRST  trip overseas into foreign lands, mind you - NO ONE in my family wanted to hear about it.  I did this all on my own.  In my house.  On my computer.  Gathering data and tips myself with no travel agent in sight.  I was the travel agent.  I flew first class. I took a train from Paris to Tours to get my car (and THAT has stories right out of the gate).  But not one person has shown a smidge of interest.  But if THEY take a trip THEY want to tell YOU ALL ABOUT IT.  Oh, so you paid a tour group to take you around and you think this is a big deal?

Of course, like everything else, this is triggering to me BECAUSE OF MOM.  One woman caused so much damage.  Literally ONE person.

That was my insight this past week.  I was reading someone else's blog and I wished I could have reached out to say "Hi, I feel the same."  ALL of my lack of confidence is because of ONE. SINGLE. PERSON.  

She writes:  Because in my family, the moment someone truly saw you (your preferences, your opinions, the weird private shape of your actual self), that information became a tool. It could be used to correct you, to criticise the parts that didn’t fit the programme, or simply to withdraw love when you turned out to be something other than what was expected.

Your true self was   dismantled by the very people who were supposed to keep it safe.

I’m still learning, at this age, that being known doesn’t have to mean being controlled, picked apart, or left.  (PS -  She's 'over 50'.  These wounds just never want to heal, do they?)

Reading this gave me a genuine Oprah 'Ah-ha' moment.  

THAT'S how I was treated.  Like a moron to be controlled, manipulated, shit upon.  The doormat that she (MOM)   knew wasn't going to EVER leave her.  Stuck.  Trapped.  Her very own China Doll Punching Bag.

I've worked SO HARD and for SOOO LOOONG to 'get over' her treatment of me, but apparently it's alive and well in all the other people I encounter along my daily path.  

When we gather for French class we have a moment of chit chat, how are you, etc. and before one class I was NOT having a good day.  Woke up fine, and then life smacks you upside the face.  That's the deal.  No one is in control.  You don't have to create your day - it finds you and toys with you (before you eventually die).

"For Fun" Let's see if I can recall some Mom-isms.

1. I hope you don't meet a man who beats you.

2. No one is good enough for my daughter - she's waiting for George Clooney. (She wasn't saying that as in SHE doesn't think anyone is good enough for me.  THAT would be normal and complimentary.  No, she was saying I think too highly of myself and only want a George Clooney type.  Which, btw, is also wrong.  I don't even think he's cute.  His DAD was, tho!  ;D)

3. No man will want you if you have cats.

4. You need to cut your long hair.

5. Your hair has split ends.  (Um, hell no it doesn't.  And first of all YOU CAN'T EVEN SEE.)

Um ... more?  Of course there's more.

She refused to eat any food I made for her because she said there would be a cat hair in it --- while at the same time going to my cousin's house (her nephew) and eating HIS food WHILE the dog is walking all through the kitchen!

SO MANY of these-isms.  He is good.  I am bad.  REPEAT.     (She was WRONG about that, too!)

The France trip.  My FIRST trip out of the country.  What applause did I get?  NONE.  Shrugged off as inconsequential.  BUT HE goes with his buddies on a trip to Alaska and upon return they ALL gather around him to be regaled with HIS stories.

That's why this stings.

~N.
April 1, 2026
"New Year's Day"