A couple days ago, I was having a conversation with a friend about mommy issues. Society pushes the narrative that being raised without a father, leads to bad relationships and life decisions. But the issues that people have from their mothers are not as talked about as they should be. That conversation was weighing heavy on me because he said, that I wasn't a forgiving person. I started to think about situations in my life where I said I forgave someone, then cut them completely out of my life. Then I used the experience as a metric for what I measured new people that came into my life against.
Then I was listening to Eric Thomas' book, "You owe you" and he said "Emotions are not evidence and feelings are not fact. We tend to point out all the negative things or the things that someone has done to hurt us, and not how they took care of you, taught you something or loved you. That made me think about who I am as a person and how much of it was based on my mother. I started to make a mental list.
I get my work ethic from my mother. Although, she had been medically retired from the post office since she was 25, she kept a job.
I understand how important it is to be present in your childs life. When my mom wasn't working she was at our school volunteering. Or she was participating in Vacation Bible school making sure that we were comfortable and safe.
I make sure my children have experiences, even if they are not extremely fancy. My mom worked at the YMCA, which gave us free access to the programs and a chance to meet and become friends with different people. She rooted us in church, where were were involved in the youth program that allowed us a little bit of travel outside of Detroit for free. I didn't appreciate it then, but now I understand that most children didn't get to go camping or on road trips at my age.
I get my faith from my mom. She wasn't consistently working. But, she made things happen. We kept a car and a home. There were times where she didn't know how she was going to make ends meet, but we always made it over. It was because of her faith in God that we knew not to worry. We might not have lights today, but the money was coming.
I get the ability to be on my own and be content from my mother. I use to hate being by myself. My mom use to take us over her friends houses or to my aunts house for different events. But, over time, she became more and more isolated. I was determined not to be that way. I would always seek out friendship, or people to talk to or spend time with. Over time though, those people got married or found other friends. Then came the betrayals from people I thought were my friends. At first it would bother me, then I started going and doing things by myself. I started to understand that I enjoyed my own company and it was safe here.
I also get my ability to be unforgiving, condescending and unselfish from her.
These are just a couple things that I thought about, when I pushed my emotions and feelings to the side and actually thought about my relationship with my mother. Granted, what I wanted mentally and emotional she wasn't able to and still isn't able to give. She gave me what I needed to survive Detroit and being raised in a single parent home. She gave me what I needed to become a strong, independent, resilient black woman. She is the reason why I don't fold when I feel like the world is crashing down on me. It was because of the beatings and the yelling while growing up, that my RDCs in boot camp could not phase me. I may not have liked her tactics and I modified them to enstill these same things in my girls.
The most important thing my mother taught me is, just because you love someone doesn't mean they will love you back. Not everyone is built like you, so breaking is inevitable, but so is rebuilding. Its you vs you always!
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