Red Wax Candles & Wanting My Mother's Love

I honestly don't know what to blog now that it's summertime and there's no more school. The narrative I'm about to publicly share used to be a private diary entry on this platform. I never post rants but hey its in the middle of the night. Barely anyone reads or interacts with my blogs anyways. 

I went to church camp awhile ago; it's mentioned in my second blog ever on SpaceHey. But now I would like to talk about it. This is my church retreat that is required for confirmation. 

After doing reconciliation (confessing sins to a priest) that night, there was a youth speaker at the podium who shared her story on how God came to her, and then she started talking about sometimes your family and loved ones having so much to say about how much they love you but not saying it, and sometimes we feel like they don’t care about us, and then she started talking about palanca letters. A Palanca letter is a written message that conveys support and guidance in a religious context, a letter that is written from the heart. Then suddenly the other youth leaders started handing out letters to all the kids at camp. I ended up getting the two sweetest letters from my group leaders that nearly brought me to tears. (Tons of other kids were crying out of happiness in the room from the letters they received, and for a while everything felt positive.) In essence, there was a lot of talk about “I’m worthy of love and have a bright future ahead of me” in the letters from my group leaders. I vented to my group earlier that day, I believe, about how sometimes I don’t think there’s a plan ahead of me in the future because I have to take care of my disabled mom, who had a stroke when I was 5, and my dad has been flaking in and out of my life since then, then leaving for good when I was 8. My mom has been disabled since she had the stroke, and I had to take care of her mostly by myself for most of my life. I’ve always felt like I had no future ahead of me since I had to give up a lot to take care of my mom, including the majority of my childhood (this is kind of bad, but I envied my older siblings who had a more stable and healthy mom, I am the youngest). I have so much I want to do in the future, but I have to take care of my mom. I love my mom, but I wish I could live a fulfilling life one day. I was surprised that the group leader actually paid attention, and the fact she did touched my heart. When she said that I do have a bright future ahead of me that I will enjoy and God has a good plan for me, I believed. I used to struggle to believe that, but for some reason I did. And the worthy of being loved thing that she mentioned in the letter for me? I didn’t say that out loud to anyone, but I prayed for a sign that I was loved in some way because I wasn’t feeling very loved by my mom. So my thoughts went, "That's some divine intervention or something," and I began really hoping for a good plan from God. But I began to look around the room full of kids, and I noticed everyone else got a letter from their family members and loved ones about how much they loved them and were grateful for them. I looked around to realize I was the only kid who didn’t get a letter from my family. That’s when I started bawling my eyes out, basically with the other people in the room. Yet they were all tearing up from joy. Overwhelmed with love. I was in such a good mood for the whole day, but it was crushed immediately by realizing this. So much for wishing for a sign that my mom loved me. I immediately connected the dots to why I am the only kid who didn’t get a letter from my family. Before the church camp, there was a parent meeting a week before that was required for all parents to attend to talk about camp; the meeting was at the same time and day I had confirmation class. My mom was the only one who couldn’t go because she didn’t feel like walking. (There was a sign-in sheet for all the adults there, and everyone else’s was filled in; I checked during the meeting before being sent to my class.) She told me later that day she would just call the youth director to talk about the meeting later. But she never did, even though I reminded her many times before camp, at some point before camp she said, “It doesn’t matter,” so she never made that call. One call and I could’ve gotten the sign I’ve been praying for so long, :( but it didn’t happen. One call and I wouldn’t be bawling my eyes out in my seat during church camp. Everyone else got letters from their parents and family about how much they loved them, but I didn’t. :( I kept crying and thinking how unfair this was. I felt all sorts of feelings—shame, sadness, emptiness, and anger. All it took was communication from my mom’s end. And then when we went back to the cabin that evening, this girl who I’m rooming with snuck her phone to camp and kept talking to her mom on the phone and saying how much she loves her mom, and I still continued to cry and cry. I couldn’t even get the proper words out to explain to my friends how I felt that night. The most I said was, “Oh, I didn’t get a letter from my family,” and “I’m good.” All I wanted was a sign that my mom loved me, but I also felt some guilt because maybe I should’ve been grateful that my group leaders stepped up to write two nice letters to me. But I just wanted my mom to care. If she went to that meeting, she could’ve known about the letters; she could’ve been informed and written me one. I could’ve gotten my sign. I didn’t feel worthy or loved in that moment. A few days later I still feel the same pit in my stomach. I, of course, appreciate the letters from my group leaders and still love my mom, but I still want to know what it feels like to be loved back the way I love her. I feel like I’m being overdramatic because I did receive some sort of sign I was loved, but just not in the way I wanted. Were my expectations too high? Do I have issues? I don’t know; all I know is that I just want to feel loved and appreciated by my mom. I love and care for her so much. And because of that, the next day when we all left the camp and headed back home, I just treated it like nothing had happened.

EDIT: Oh to clarify about the red wax candles in the title, since we were all 2nd year confirmation students we received red candles at the camp which was given at the same time the letters were handed. Red represents confirmation I believe. The red wax candle is just a silly little detail lol. I was a sobbing sad looking kid whose face was puffy and swollen while holding a lit red wax candle in a dark room with other kids with lit red wax candles as well.