This is my mother as well. The ultimate gift giver with strings that go on and on.
As the oldest, and a girl, I bore the brunt growing up and continue to do so in part.
As the woman who gave me life, I do love her. There were good times sprinkled in that I hold in my memory.
When I was pregnant with my first, I wanted a boy soooooo bad because I just knew if I had a daughter I would repeat the cycle - I didn't really understand her then.
Two weeks after my daughter, my first, was born, I was standing at the kitchen sink and had this overwhelming fear of becoming my mother and doing to my sweet baby what she did to me. I broke down sobbing right there. My then husband and father of my children came in and asked what was the matter. I said, "I don't want to be my mother."
He said two simple words, "Then don't."
Seem insensitive and simple?
Maybe, but for some reason those two words made the biggest difference for me.
No fluff, no excuses, not pity, no coddle. Just simply be a different person.
Not only did I break the cycle, but it released me from being a victim and wasting my life on wondering and wishing "what if?"
Fran used to say, "It is what it is." It's kinda like that for me. She is. But I don't have to be,nor do I have to live with the burden of memory or the stress of trying to live within her dictate.
Sharon
