Another Year and Still no Mother

Today is the start of another year. A chance to start over and achieve your goals. This year I have resolved to get more organized in my home and to get my family finances under control. While I'm making these goals I wonder if my mother made any resolutions this year and what they are. The more I think on it the more I wonder when was the last time my mother set a goal for herself.

I don't want to come off as a goal oriented person. I tended to set the bar really low for myself just so I don't have to feel the sting of failure. Growing up with my mother I learned how to get by on the bare minimum. She did not graduate from high school and did not encourage my education. I pretty much dropped out of school halfway through fifth grade. I felt the need to stay home with my brother to make sure he was ok. I remember a truant officer was looking for me and my mother enouraged me to not answer the door or phone just in case. She collected welfare and did not have any ambition to get an actual job. Why work when the state will pay enough to keep us alive? I did not learn anything about goal setting or wanting to acheive anything greater in my life. I knew I did not want to turn out like my mom but that was it. I thought I would be considered a success if I didn't get pregnant in high school and I stayed drug free. I managed only the former.

It wasn't until after my brother and I were removed from our mother's care did I learn to set and achieve goals. My adopted parents challenged me to be more than I was. They wouldn't let me get away with the bare minimum because they knew I could achieve more than that. At the time I thought it was harsh to expect me to get mostly A's and B's in school. Looking back though if I had just taken some pride in what I was doing and applied myself it would have been easy. My adopted parents set goals for me not to see me fail but challenge me to be better than I was and to set goals for myself. I have achieved only one goal I have set for myself: graduate from high school without a baby. I haven't set any goals for myself beyond that. I have worked jobs I hated just because they were entry level and paid my bills. I have dated men that I knew I had no future with but justified it as love. I have been in unhealthy relationships simply because I had no desire for anything more. I have spent my whole life surviving on the bare minimum. That will be changing.

I am choosing this year to no longer allow myself to be hindered by fear of success. I will better my living situation and my families by going back to school and take it seriously. I will get my home under my control and spend more time outside the home as a family. My mom did not instill in me the qualities I want my daughter to have. It will be hard for me to change how I choose to live but I am determined. I want my daughter to achieve her dreams whatever they may be. I will encourage her in everything she does. I never got any encouragement from my mother. She has told me a few times she is proud of my achievements but she never made a point to be there to witness them. I wish she would have been there at my graduation. Or at the birth of my first child. Or when I married the man I had been waiting my whole life for. She knew about these things well in advance and still made no effort to be a part of them other than telling me she was proud. 

One final goal I am choosing to set this year is to change the view I have on the relationship with my mother. So often I dwell on what she missed in my life. The years that we have not seen each other. This year I want to focus on the time we have left. My mother is at a point in her addiction I can see it killing her. I hope and pray that she will get help before then and we can work on repairing our relationship. There are many things I know I can still learn from her but that will not happen while she is still a practicing addict. So this year I look forward to the future in hopes of seeing my mother healthy again. I know it's a long shot and I won't get my hopes too high. I just want to take this moment in the ephoria of the new year to dream of what could be.

Happy New Year to all of you. Hope the new year brings much love and joy your way.

Taya