I have always liked to write. It wasn't until after high school that I discovered I had this secret talent and I have sworn for years that someday...someday I would do something with it. Perhaps a smutty novel...maybe a self-help book (who am I kidding)? A talent given should not be wasted and yet that is precisely what I have done....wasted it. I take credit for a handful of witty facebook posts and maybe a couple of hundred funny emails but that has been the extent of my god given talent (perhaps my ONLY god given talent). A therapist encouraged me many years ago to write letters and never give them to those who may have angered or hurt me. This was to serve as therapy. I have written and burned about a dozen letters in my adult years and sadly...delivered a few.
Today is my mothers birthday and I hate to admit that I think of her less and less with each passing year. While she is engraved in my every movement, I don't take time like I used to just ponder her or miss her for that matter. It is because of that I am taking the opportunity to do something that she always encouraged me to do...write. She was that kind of mother. The kind that told you that you could do whatever you wanted and made you believe not only could you do it, but that you'd succeeded before you even started. She would get you so riled up while you were talking to her that you'd want to leave mid conversation and get started on whatever it was you had wanted to do.
Our confidence gets tarnished as we get older. We start and quit jobs. We gain and lose friends. We find ourselves in toxic situations where people tell us that we can't do something or that we are doing it wrong. We find ourselves running the rat race called life and fall victim to those who are trying to swipe our legs out from under us... this is where we run to our mothers and they comfort us and tell us that we really ARE all that and a bag of chips and suddenly we feel better about ourselves.
This is where I have been lacking.
Motherless daughters. Ugh...I hate the way that sounds. I have walked down the isle at the book store and glanced at books with that title. I have yet to pick one up because it sounds pitiful and depressing and like it might strike a chord so deep that once I went there...I might never return.
I think it is fair to say that I have grown more in the 8 years since my mothers passing than perhaps in my 36 years combined. I'd be lying if I said that the growth had been pretty. Perhaps the fact I have muddled through without a mothers wisdom and insight is why it has been so brutal and ugly at times. Moving across the country, teenagers, a child hanging on for dear life, marriage quarrels....I'd pay a thousand for her two cents right about now.
Not a day passes that I don't thank my dad for my wicked sense of humor. It has given me the ability to laugh at my situations, my surroundings, and most of all...myself. My laughter is sometimes (ok, A LOT of the time) irreverent but it is my coping mechanism and it has served me well:)
My mother encouraged me to journal which has never appealed to me. I did however thrive on her writings when she passed away. I remember reading her journaling about the day she was diagnosed with cancer and how she sat outside in the pouring rain wishing it would wash her clean of cancer. (storms seem to have an underlying theme in my family...) It is because my time was cut short with my family, I feel the need to heed her counsel and use my talent to leave something behind for my family....not that I'm going anywhere. So today, in honor of her...I'm going to tackle my goal to start a blog (not journal) but blog. That seems much more doable and much less like Little House on the Prairie.
My mom was sweet and gentle and at the same time was an old school badass. I never once saw her feel sorry for herself (though she had ample reason too). She seriously controlled her own destiny...up until the day she died. I mean she had her own programs made up for the funeral if that tells you anything about the kind of woman she was...
Becoming a motherless daughter (gulp. there I said it) didn't send me into a depression but it sure had me stuck for awhile. I am happy to report that I am feeling less and less stuck with each passing day and though I am still most likely covered in mud, the fact is I am here. I have learned that enduring the trial is usually more important than the trial itself. Even if it seems like it is taking an unusually long time to heal....or in my case, a ridiculously long time to heal.
I have begun trying new things and have spent more time laughing at myself than usual. I have allowed people into my life that I wouldn't have even considered in the past and am enjoying what they have to teach me. I am talking to strangers more (though my children would tell you this has never been a problem for me). I am learning peoples names and calling them by it. Why? Because everyone deserves to feel important. I am quicker than ever to recognize when someone makes me feel bad and it is getting harder and harder to ignore those feelings. I have zero tolerance for anger or bitterness or flaring tempers. I worked too hard to shed these ugly behaviors and now... I don't want to be in the same room with them.
I still don't know who I am. I hope I never know. If I do, then that will mean I've stopped growing....the key is to constantly reinvent and whether that means learning to play the drums, or going dancing with a friend, laughing louder than normal or simply changing negative behaviors than bring it...
Life is too short to stay the same.
