When I was younger I used to tell people that I didn’t give my mom too much grief as a child. Now that I’m a mother of a daughter in her 20s I understand… payback is a bitch.
I’m trying my best to be a little bit of everything I want to be. A mom, a wife, a friend, a business owner, somedays a writer but most days a good daughter. When my mom got sick I made the choice to bring her home with me more for me than for her. I needed to know that I had done everything in my power to help keep her happy and healthy. I needed to make up for the way I told her I was pregnant at 17 or didn’t tell her I was pregnant with child number two at 19. The way I told her things were none of her business and I was a grownup who had it all under control.
That’s funny to me now. That I actually thought I didn’t need her and I had it all under control. Now at 42 I know better. I’m doing everything I can to hold on to her for as long as I can. I try my best to remember to say I love you everyday. Hopefully she will remember that more than the spiteful pain in the ass I was. You are never too old to need your mama and I don’t know what I would do without mine.
I try to remind myself of this when my daughter is clearly her mother’s clone. When now, at 20, she knows everything, doesn’t need me and has everything under control.
One day I’ll get to tell my baby that I understand. That I was that girl too once.
In the meantime I’ll keep saying my sorries in the form of warm breakfasts, clean laundry and occasionally looking the other way when mama just wants a burger for dinner. I’ll keep trying and failing and trying and failing and trying again to be a better daughter than I was yesterday.
Maybe along the way I’ll learn to be a good mom too.
Raising Mama 