What Motherhood Means To Me

I haven’t written for the past few days because the only thing weighing on my heart is my mother. I found myself wrestling with the thought of whether it seems pathetic to have a blog meant for sharing my thoughts on anything under the sun, yet here I am, compelled to write about her time and again. But then I realized, isn’t that precisely why I embarked on this writing journey? To create a safe space for the whirlwind of emotions swirling in my mind, to give them a place to rest on paper? To express feelings I often hesitate to voice out loud? Yes, that’s exactly why I began this writing venture so long ago. So, if sharing these reflections about her is what helps me navigate through the turmoil in my heart, then so be it. With that in mind, here is yet another.

In my younger years, I used to stand in the card isle of the grocery store staring at the Mother’s Day cards. Sometimes for literally an hour. I picked up every card. Read every passage about having an amazing, nurturing, and loving mother. I read them all. Over and over. And all I could think was none of this shit applies to me and my mom, or my life as her daughter. “I know you will always have my back no matter what”.. nope, not mine. She was the FIRST to turn on me or stab me in the back. “You are my best friend and I would be lost without you”… absolutely not. I am not even sure I consider her my friend, let alone a best friend. “Because of you, I am a better woman and mother”… ehh, maybe I could give her that one. Not because she showed me how. But She showed me everything I would never allow myself to become as a mother. “You are always there to pick me up when life lets me down”.. this line literally made me LOL in the middle of the isle quite a few times. She has never picked me up from the low points of my life. In fact, she was either the reason I was on the floor, or she was there kicking me while life held me down.

So I used to stand there. Paralyzed. Feeling ashamed that I couldn’t just pick a damn card for my mom and move on. Get the generic card, get the flowers, put on a smile, show up to the gathering, and move on. And in fact, I did that for many years. I set aside the war raging in my heart every Mother’s Day. I grabbed the card, signed it with love, grabbed some flowers and a bottle of wine, showed up, played my role as the loving and grateful daughter… all while it ate away at my soul. Every time I handed her a card, it felt like a slap in the face to that little girl I used to be. The one that used to buy Mother’s Day cards and hide them in my room so I could read them at night and pray that one day my reality would be as sweet as the picture painted in those words.

But seriously, where are the cards for relationships like this? Where is the REAL? Where is the not so picture perfect for those of us that live in that reality? If I created a Mother’s Day card that said what I really needed it to say it would read something like this I think:

“Happy Day You Brought A Life Into This World…. only to allow the world to crush her before she could even stand up for herself. Thanks for having me, and then spending my life telling me how I ruined yours. Thanks for not having an abortion, but telling me over and over how people told you to, and I should be grateful to you that you didn’t listen. Thanks for keeping me in a situation for almost 8 years where you allowed the man you labeled my father to abuse and torture me every night while you went to work at the Waffle House to make his drug money. Thank you for never hearing me when I screamed, cried, and hung to your leg begging you not to leave me there again with that monster. Those are the moments I will carry with me for the rest of my life. Thank you for that. And I could never forget the way you wore the shortest shorts or lowest cut shirts in front of my teenage boyfriends, only to tell me later they were checking you out because you are “hotter” than me. Reminding me that boys didn’t really like me, they never could. Or the times you took my little sister shopping, bought hundreds of dollars worth of clothes and then claimed they were really for you but she could wear them too since you were both the same size. Reminding me that it’s not your fault that I am “bigger” than the two of you and can’t share clothes with you. That was the support every teenage girl dreams of ! Most of all, I will never forget how you did drugs with my ex-husband and had some type of inappropriate contact with him (I may never really know the full truth, but do I really need to?), all while knowing he was actively abusing me, and putting me and your granddaughter in harms way daily with his drug use. I certainly would not be the person I am today, without all of these life lessons you have taught me Mom! Signed With Tears, the daughter that is trying like hell to love you when you have given me so many reasons not to.”

Yeah.. I think my card would read something like that. Even though that really doesn’t even begin to cover it. But you can’t fit 42 years of pain into one card… or even one blog. Hence the reason I have wrote so damn many on this subject. I think at this point, I am just trying to say all the things my heart has needed to say for so long. In hopes that if I can write it down, I can let it go. I no longer play the part of the doting daughter on Mother’s Day. On all the the other days, I try. I paste the smile, send the text, answer the call, go to the gatherings, make the facebook post, show up when I can. I try like hell to love the woman I know brought me into this world, even if she has spent my life letting me know she regrets that decision. But these last few years, I have decided that I will not pretend on Mother’s Day anymore. I give myself this one day. I give myself a pass on Mother’s Day. Freedom to feel what I do about my mother, and what I don’t. Without the need to justify it or try and cover it up. I will not force my heart to feel things it doesn’t about her. I will not shame myself for lacking those feelings. I will not battle a war within my soul, let it drag me into the darkness, on a day that I DO deserve to celebrate. I will not allow her, to ruin this day for me and my kids. I give myself the freedom to feel good, and be happy in the life I have created.

I have worked hard for the the love and recognition I get on Mother’s Day. I don’t claim to be the perfect mom, Lord knows that I have many flaws and mishaps in my motherhood journey. But I KNOW without doubt, when my children hand me cards filled with words of love and thanks, I have earned those words and the respect attached to them. I own the way my kids feel about me. From the moment I held my daughter in my arms, and then again when I held my son, I knew I would never cause either of them the pain that my mother caused me. I would never allow things to happen to them that were allowed to happen to me. I would never betray their trust. I knew I would spend my life fighting the demons my mother left me with, so that my own kids never have to meet them.

I have been a mom for twenty years now. That is crazy to think about honestly. For twenty years I have put someone else’s needs before my own. I have given when I felt like I didn’t have anything left to give. I have cried in the dark so they wouldn’t see. I went hungry so they could eat. I have prayed for them and for everything I need to be for them. I have fought silently, so they could live in peace. I have supported them, guided them, loved them, built them up, kissed the knees, brushed the hair, cheered the loudest, loved them the most……all while standing in the grocery store isle every Mother’s Day reading the cards and wondering if my own mother ever loved me.

And THAT is what Motherhood means to me. Not being the perfect mom, not never making mistakes, not never disappointing them, not making excuses for my shortcomings. But making sure they know they are loved with every piece of my heart, even if those pieces are bruised and broken.