A moment in time

I've spent years trying to figure out what went wrong with my mother's relationship with me. Why I never seemed to meet her expectations, and why we always seemed to keep colliding into each other's feelings and needs. I found this photograph a few days ago, it's sepia tinted, the camera unable to deal with shooting against the light, but this sense of mystery, and not being able to figure things out that addes to the meaning of this image. I know about Bowlby's attachment theories. That our babyhood and early years hold the key to how we relate to our early caregivers. But, as we are most likely pre-verbal at this stage, and mothers will be most likely to not remember the early days and years, lost as they can be in a fog of feeding, tiredness and adjusting to a new life as a mum. As my mother and I are no longer in contact, I've been left trying to solve the answer to a puzzle that there aren't really any answers to, and this is encapsulated by this photo. It's vague, opaque and difficult to get meaning from. The two people in the photograph are lost to time, I have no recollection of being a baby, beyond what my brain laid down, and my mother is no longer that young, new mum. In a way, the grainy impenetrability of this image gives me the answer. I will never know what went wrong. All I can do now is make peace with it, and find ways to live my life with all its attendant scars in the best way that I can.

#dycp #artandanxiety #mentalhealthjourney