Putting on My Mask: Building My Family
For as long as I can remember I have wanted to have my own family, wanted to be a mom. I never dreamed of my wedding like many others I know. Instead I dreamed of having the type of families I saw on TV or like my friends had. The families with both parents in the house, 2 kids, who loved spending time together in a safe, loving, supportive environment.
I helped raise my brother. My parents divorced when I was six and he was three. My mom went from being a stay at home mom to having a full-time job and went back to school to get her masters degree all while raising us both mostly on her own. Instinctually I knew what to do and my mom relied on that as she juggled everything she had to manage by herself. I started babysitting by the age of eleven. I would watch infants all the way up to eight or nine.
I knew deep down growing up that things were not ‘normal’ in my family. I knew I had to not speak about what happened at home or bad things would come to me. I knew from spending the night at my friends houses that not all families operated the way mine did. I learned to hide things, to be embarrassed by them and thought they were a reflection of me as a person. When you are growing up you are judged so harshly based on who your parents are. It led me to hide as much as I could of myself and my family from the world. In turn I would watch, I would observe, I would take notes, I would create stories about other families in my head. I wanted to learn what it was like to be in a ‘normal’ family.
In college I had this job at a high end shoe and clothing boutique. I worked with other women right out of college and some older. I heard constantly about how one needed to have secured her match before ending college or else she would have a hard time finding anyone for her at all, not an uncommon thing to hear in the South. All my colleagues who were a few years ahead of me, just out of college, all seemed to be getting married within a year or two of school to their college boyfriends. Each of them seemed to have a picture perfect life. Their husbands all had high paying jobs that allowed them to spend most of their paycheck on clothes and shoes from the store. They all drove nice cars and lived in nice houses in the highly sought after parts of town. I was envious that their lives seemed so easy and they seemed so happy, I wanted that for myself too.
When I met Coleman I could see the perfect life with him. The one with the two kids and the house. There was something different about him. I felt safe with him in a way I had never had before with anyone else. He came with his fair share of issues to work through, as we all do in our early 20s, but there was a familiarity with his soul, his spirit, his energy that allowed me to feel safe in a way that I never had with anyone else before.
Having that deep feeling of knowing combined with what I had absorbed around me and endured growing up, I held on as tight as I could to Coleman once we met. Terrified if I lost him, that I might never find anyone who would want to “put up with me.” I ignored the red flags early on that some would have walked away from- both with him and his family. Things that would greatly impact how we were able to come together to form our family and the obstacles we would have to endure to move through them together. It goes both ways though, I had my own red flags that he ignored too that we have also had to work through.
I practically begged Coleman to propose to me after I finished grad school. We moved to Raleigh after our lease ran up where I was in grad school because there were more job opportunities there than the mountains. We were living together and talked about what we wanted for the future, both always on the same page for what we saw for our lives. We talked a lot about getting married one day, but I was ready then. I was so scared of losing him. Scared that if he got to know me for too long before he was stuck with me that he wouldn’t want me anymore. So I pushed. One day I remember crying on the way home from dinner after he told me that he just couldn’t see himself being able to afford a ring in the next few years. Two weeks later he proposed, the ring had already been on order when he told me that. It didn’t take away the shame I felt for crying after the news though, so desperate and needy. I would belittle myself and say that I didn’t deserve him and I had tricked him into wanting to marry me, even though that wasn’t really the case. He is not the type of person to do anything he doesn’t want to do (over fifteen years later and I haven’t talked him into a thing he didn’t want to do yet HA). I didn’t love myself so it was hard to believe that he truly loved me and that it wasn’t all going to just *poof* disappear one day.
I had always hoped that I would marry into a family that truly enjoyed being with one another. One that got together frequently, laughed at the dinner table together, enjoyed vacationing together, loved their holiday gatherings. It was what I had always dreamed of, the big family Christmas with all the cousins and grandparents together enjoying each others company vs. pretending to withstand one another just to talk shit the moment they leave- like what I had grown up around.
At first I thought I found that with Coleman. I thought I found the family that truly enjoyed each other and unconditionally loved each other. It appeared that way on the outside… But the first holiday I spent with his family showed me otherwise. It’s tradition in his family that the ‘boys’ go golfing on Friday, his mom being the only woman in the house meant she was used to spending the day by herself. She seemed excited that she would have someone go to shopping and out to lunch with. My first time alone with his mother since we started dating, I was a bit intimidated and nervous. Half way through lunch as I was taking a bite into my cheeseburger she gave me quite a judgmental look and said “Don’t you think you should put that down and take a sip of water and think if you are hungry or not?” I immediately shut down and out of spite finished every last drop of the burger even though I could have stopped with about 1/4 of it left in the end- still a few bites to go! I had struggled with anorexia, body dysmorphia and exercise bulimia off and on since middle school- I was immediately triggered and went into survival mode.
I have dozens and dozens of stories in which I was belittled and demeaned by my mother-in-law and I said nothing. “You know every time we are together I try to take a picture of you, but none of them ever turn out okay” “You know you can switch out that sour cream for Greek yogurt which is less fattening” “Congratulations for managing to hold down a job for more than a year” “You are not part of the real family though, your vote doesn’t count” “Let’s go around the table and everyone tell me your weight.” I waited time and time again for Coleman to stick up for me, to care enough about me to take a stand to say this isn’t right.
The family I thought I had joined to escape mine didn’t exist. So I had to create it… We would have to create it.
“Through this world I've stumbled
So many times betrayed
Trying to find an honest word
To find the truth enslaved
Oh you speak to me in riddles and
You speak to me in rhymes
My body aches to breathe your breath
Your words keep me alive”
- “Possession” by Sarah McLachlan
Home Blessings Spell Jar
This spell jar is to be used to protect your home, purify the energies, assist with inhabitant dynamics, encourage love, healing, courage and luck. This jar is the ultimate purifier, amplifier, and stress reducing addition to your home.
Ingredients:
Citrine chips
Quartz chips
Goldenrod
Nettle
Rose
Chamomile
Glass jar with natural top (cork, wood, etc.)
Candle or wax pellets (light blue and gold)
Incense
Adornment & string to attach it with (optional)
Examples: seashell, crystal, pendant
Wax seal/stamp (optional)
What to Do:
Start by opening up sacred space and asking your spirit team to assist you during the spell jar process
Create a circle of salt in a dish on your alter to surround your glass jar
Cleanse your glass jar with incense after it is placed in the center of the salt circle imagining all negative energies leaving the jar
Add ingredients 1 by 1 into the jar. As you work with each one ensure that you are placing the intentions (listed in the chart below) for each ingredient and thanking the spirit of the plant/flower/crystal you are working with
Once all ingredients are added, add top to bottle, place adornment (if needed) and seal with wax. While pouring wax place the following intentions:
Light blue wax= peace, devotions, family union
Gold wax- fortune, abundance, power, success
And say the following phrase: “I seal this jar with the intention to bless and protect this house along with those living in it. Allow this jar to bring the family into their highest timeline of abundance, love, and happiness. So mote it be.”
(optional) Stamp top of wax with seal
Close sacred space thanking your spirit team. Give organic ingredients back to the Earth safely and dispose of any others as appropriate.
Place the spell jar in the back left corner of your house for the best results!
Ingredient Metaphysical Properties:
Black Salt= Protection, purification
Money rice= Prosperity, abundance
Citrine= Abundance, grounding negative energies, assist with family dynamics
Quartz= Worker of magic, amplifying energies, bring energy to perfect state
Goldenrod= Good fortune
Nettle= Drive out negative/unwanted spirits, protection
Rose= Love, courage, divination
Chamomile= Protection, purification, luck, healing, stress reduction
Download your FREE PDF of the spell. Not yet ready to try a spell jar yourself? Purchase your Home Blessings jar here.
