Let's start this off by taking note that I am an only child - spoiled rotten to the core. Perhaps after having me for a couple months, my mother decided that
ONE IS ENOUGH!
Or that I was such an awesome child, any others born would be pathetic in comparison.
I'm gonna go with the later.
Being the only child of a woman with a roller-coaster journey through life has given me a very unique relationship with my mother. Herself just barely an adult having a child of her own, 9 days into her 20th year of life, gave us the beginning of what is seen to many as a somewhat unconventional , and pretty hilarious, mother/daughter relationship - to which I can't say I am at all ashamed of. I think it's pretty kick ass, having a mom who enjoys the same music as me, who understands pop culture either as much or as little as I do, and now an adult myself, being able to go to the bar with her and put back a couple drinks. Coming up on my 27th birthday, I think how I may have missed a window of opportunity to experience the same relationship with my own children, and it makes me a little sad. But being the only child I am, that's fine. I don't wana share that relationship, anyway. So there.
The other half of who helped create me gave my mom hell. It was almost as though even with my father around, my mom functioned as a single mother. He was too busy in his own mental world to function as a father or husband who wasn't drunk or abusive, so mom always stepped up to the plate to fill the spot. When I was in elementary, she commuted from our sad little trailer park home to her office job early every morning - leaving me a little goose gravy boat filled with milk, and a bowl of cereal covered in Saran wrap in the fridge so I could eat before walking myself to the school bus. That's probably one of the best (if not ONLY) memories I have from that chapter in our lives - knowing that my mom always had me in mind even when she was rushing to to be the responsible adult parent, when my father fell short.
Move forward a couple years (because honestly, I don't really have many memories until about this time), when my mom had finally left my dad, and made the move to start a life with who would later become my step father. We moved into an apartment in Auburn, WA (just north of where we were living on South Hill/Puyallup, WA), on a busy road cutting through the valley towns. If I remember correctly, the apartment was only one bedroom ( although I really think it was two), but I what stood out most was it being a priority that I have my own room. We went to a thrift store just down the road, and my mom helped me pick out a blanket for the new bed. It was soft cotton with different pastel colors - a blanket that I would have for many years. This was a new start for us - but most importantly, it was a new start for her to learn what it is to be happy and loved with a family of her own.
Time goes by, my mom's new boyfriend buys us a house a couple blocks away - a little 3-bedroom rambler that they would spend many hours updating. We had turbulent times, just like any family, but my mom always made sure that she stood strong and that I was taken care of. Our home slowly turned into a spot where all my friends would come to hang out - all of whom had horrible relationships with their parents, or came from abusive and broken homes. My mom would make sure everyone was fed, root beer float ice cream cups from the
Schwan's guy in the freezer, and on occasion would take a break from remodeling the laundry room to watch "This Old House" with my best friend's boyfriend. She made our house a home, a shelter, a place where she made people feel like things were going to be okay. To this day, my mom tends to serve as the mother figure to many of my friends. She's cool like that.
My mom went with her boyfriend for a little while to China, where he was sent for work with Boeing. While there, he married her in Hong Kong - my mom in a little white dress, and him in a suit. Probably one of the biggest disappointments is that I wasn't there - along with his two older sons. I understand now that it was easier, but at 11 years old, I felt like they were hiding something from me, and I was losing my mom.
Of course, like with any adolescent girl's thought process being directed by unbalanced hormones, that wasn't the case. She married the man who is still my step father after, I believe 15/16 years (Way to go, Bill, for putting up with her for that long!) A man who stepped up to the plate to relieve my mom of the role as "dad" in my life - a man of intelligence, little patience, a narrow understanding of adolescent girls after raising two boys, absolutely no oral filter, and the largest heart that my mom could ever find. He adored her then, and still does now - which she deserves to the fullest.
Years go by, we move with my step dad whenever Boeing sends him off, he's later laid off from Boeing, they start truck driving, I meet Brian, move out, and start my own life. As I got older, I think our relationship changed a little. Not for the worse (I hope), but perhaps in a sense that I started to appreciate her much MUCH more than before. Don't get me wrong, my mom has been, and always will be, my most favorite person in the world - but I saw life, and her, differently.
As I got older, walking through adult life on my own I think helped me understand her more. Helped me recognize the choices she had to make in the face of many bad cards dealt - her making strategic steps in life to make sure that her and I were safe and happy. It was never a choice she made with only herself in mind, or a choice she made with only me in mind - but more of a her and I against the world. Almost like we're war buddies who survived Life.
There are moments when I see a picture of my mom holding me, or remembering a moment where we are just being ourselves that I tear up a little, knowing that I can't put into words properly how much I absolutely love this woman in all of her beauty and flaws and silliness. And that, sadly, one day, it will be too late for me to ever find those words. I know many people who don't have the luxury of texting their mom on a random thought about something as ridiculous as how loud their fart was - and I couldn't imagine a life like that.
Ever. Just thinking about it now is making me want to cry.
In both our differences and our many MANY similarities (hello emotional Cancer babies!), I don't know if I can think of any other woman who I would feel so honored to have call me her daughter. No one else in this universe I can think of who, when I accomplish something amazing, or experience my lowest of lows, I would want to call or just snuggle up with and cry. Even when she leaves from a visit and I can still smell her in the guest room, I get a sensation of happiness and peace - I can't ever flirt with the thought of someone else having that affect on me. There is no one else in the world that I would want to have a puppy-kiss war with (because we're one of those huggy/kissy type of people).
She is flawed. She is beautiful. She is intelligent. She is clever. She is insecure. She is strong. She is my best friend. She is my rock. She is the embodiment of what a woman and a mother should me. And she's
mine. All, only-child selfishly mine.
I love you mom. <3
