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My biggest eye opening, make a change, wake-up happened when Joe came to visit last summer. He now hadn't lived with me for exactly a year, which meant I hadn't worn my Mom hat for a year as well. I had always thought of myself as an awesome Mom. A great Mom. I mean we all think of ourselves that way right? And I know some really bad Mom's. I'm pretty quick to judge. But I never stopped and judged myself. Until last year.
Coincidentally, I was reading a powerful self help book at the time that Joe came to visit. It was helping me identify the different 'egos' I had created for myself based on many different situations in my past. I had already come to some powerful conclusions and was working hard at breaking down those created egos. The ego that I failed to questions throughout the whole year of self discovery was my Mom ego. Who I was a Mom? Where did my thoughts, beliefs, habits and idiosyncrasies come from?
When I was 14 years old my parents divorced. I couldn't have been happier. I was probably the only kid who wanted their parents to divorce. My home was broken in every sense of the word. Broken, beaten and badly bruised. My Father was a walking, talking, shell of a human being engrossed by drugs. I can't say I know much about who he is as a person, and I'm not sure that he knows either, but I can tell you a lot about drug abuse and addiction. My Mother was our primary care taker and worked a steady, respectable job five days a week.
(Flash forward to Joe's return to my house.)
So here I was, living my day to day life now about to reincorporate the Mom ego/hat. I came home from work on that first day, tired. I made dinner, we watched a movie. We went to sleep. Tuesday, repeat. Wednesday, repeat. Thursday, repeat. Friday, we went to dinner and watched fireworks. Sounds pretty average right? Sure, except it was drastically different than my weeks prior. I remember thinking to myself, 'Why am I acting different because Joe is here?' I had just experienced a whole side of me that I had never experienced before, and yet it all went out the window when I was wearing my Mom hat. This lead me to finally understand that the Mom I had been playing for 13 years was the Mom I had learned and created. Not the Mom who I really was. When I really broke it down, I was doing exactly what I had witnessed my Mom do for most of my childhood. Except she was going through an abusive marriage at the time, I was not. I had no excuse for being so disengaged.
I can't even remember the context of the conversation of the year that it took place, but I remember the words vividly. My Grandma Cora said "Your parent's raised you the best way that they knew how."
I fault no one for past experiences, I am an adult responsible for my thoughts, actions, as well as my future and I have a child of my own to shape. I am now the one who has to do the best I know how. I understand wholeheartedly what my Grandma meant in her words of wisdom. But what happens when you know better and don't do your best? When you don't do the best that you know how? As soon as I recognized the effect that this issue had on Joe I felt too guilty to not make a change. I want to be a parent who does the best I know how to do, and I never want to assume that I am fully at my best.
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