Like so many women, I was living out the unlived life of my mother - so I wouldn't be her. But the price I paid was that I distanced myself internally.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
My real mother is a survivor, very strong and respected by the people who know her, but our relationship is not easy - but then, it was never going to be.
Somewhere deep inside me was the will and determination not only to live, but to be a more present mother for my kids, instead of one who was emotionally unavailable because she was in so much pain, as my own mother was.
My mother didn't want me to be a feminist, a radical, political person, because she was scared. She wanted me to be protected and safe, but my life never was.
My mother was totally different from the mothers of my friends. She would never separate from me. In a way, my life belongs to her. When I was a child, she complained that I was anorexic, so they sent me to places to get me to eat. When I look at pictures of myself, I was just a normal-looking child. It was her fantasy.
Although I have a lot of close female friends in my life, my number one is still my mom. Without her, I wouldn't have the values that I have and see the world the way that I do today. She taught me how to appreciate and respect women. She taught me chivalry and how to love a woman and respect their feelings and emotions.
I barely saw my mother, and the mom I saw was often angry and unhappy. The mother I grew up with is not the mother I know now. It's not the mother she became after my father died, and that's been the greatest prize of my life.
I don't think that much about my relationship with my mother and what it did to me. I sometimes feel terrible regret about her, what her life must have been like. Often, when I'm enjoying something, I think of how meager her rewards were and how much courage, in a way, she needed to go on living.
My mother is a strong, wonderful woman. I could never be anything she didn't want me to be.
There are a lot of sacrifices a mother makes when she's raising a child by herself. I saw it when I was growing up, watching all my mother did for me. But it wasn't until recently that I fully understood the price she paid because of how we had to struggle.
I'm really close to my mother. She sacrificed a lot for me and my sister. She gave up her career. Whatever I am today is due to the values my mother instilled in me.