The Important Lessons of Self Importance and Self Reliance Taught by My Mother

If I had to think back to a time when she taught me something it would be, self importance; self reliance. Not everyone is nice, not everyone will help you out. I learned that all from her and then some. I had just turned eighteen on May 14, 2015, when I began to acknowledge that my mother wasn’t who she said she was.

That 18th birthday of mine was spent sharing with ‘family’ I did not know. Who claimed they loved, and supported me. That was a lie on their part. It was also a lie on my mother who was blind to acknowledge her only child and how hurt I was. I was hurt because I watched her evolve into this hideous woman I no longer knew.

Within a two year time period, from ages fifteen through seventeen, I could say I knew longer knew this woman I once called “mom”. I watched her cheat on a man she was married to for eleven years, then get a divorce. She left shortly after willingly and dragged me along with. Moving around house to house, place to place, with people I did not know. Waiting for her to show up, but she was always gone. Days, weeks, sometimes month at times, all for men she claimed to love. Eventually, I watched her drink herself away, when “the only man she loved” was sent away to prison on a sex offender charge. She didn’t care about me. She did a great job of showing a proving to me.Slowly she smashed her nose in the white powder that all her new friends loved.

How could someone I know as “mom” become someone, like this. I am just a girl that is scared to live in this world. I am a little more outspoken than the rest, but I live life and understand what should not be understood from most my age. Life never makes quite that much sense to me but once I know I have full courage to open her mind, and soul into most of everything I do. Then I can become this beautiful creature that not only lives to protect myself, but others, with souls that yearned to have it all. All the love, all the gory, all the hope, all the faith, that I, or they could ever receive, and discover.

My mother not only taught me to not trust those who claim to love me, but also that self reliance; self importance is key in life. Who will be there for you when no one else is? Who will pick you back up when everyone else makes it know they can’t? She was a handful of a woman, claiming to love me, and at some point in my life, I know that was true.

As of now she has made it known that after five years, she has not changed. I forgive her for not being there, for leaving me. Leaving me with no food, no water, no warmth, for leaving me unsafe and harmed. For allowing me to feel like beaten dog on the side of the road. For putting men before me, and letting those men have their way. For making me feel, like when I needed her, she would always be there.To this day I forgive her, but I will never forget everything that happened. Every untold memory that many never know, or could imagine.

How did she show you these characteristics?

I don’t believe my mother showed me the characteristics directly, because she was a vague woman who like showing no emotion. But indirectly she proved that I had to be someone that I was meant to be. I believe that everything happened for a reason and time after time you get choices to shape you into the person you're supposed to be. I like to give credit to my mother, only because it was her that I went through all these hards time with.

What morals did she have?

My mother was the type who was not very open to showing her feelings. Her and I never talked about her morals. I always felt like she had none after what I seen her do and say. She was a ‘free spirit’, who loved doing whatever she wanted, with no cares in the world. Maybe she didn’t have morals, I felt that myself, others maybe not so much.