A Mother's Love

I think it goes without saying that most of us have a woman close to us that we look up to, for me, that's my mother. I know that sounds like a typical answer but I did not live a typical life, and without my mother's love and commitment to me, I might not have been alive right now.

Let me tell you a little bit about growing up in my life. My mother had me at the age of 22, my father was 3 years older. They split up while I was still very young, but I kept contact with my father. When I was a baby my mother left the job she loved to take the time to be a mother to me, eventually going on to work many years at a coffee shop.

Without my dad in the household, my mother didn't have a lot of money, but she was able to still keep the house in her name and provide for me, while on a minimum wage job. This meant that for most of my childhood we didn't have cable or internet, and we ate what was on sale, often using coupons and price matching, or bulk buying when there was a good deal. To entertain myself, I usually played video games, read books, and watched movies. Raising a child on minimum wage is a very difficult thing to do on your own, especially if you had a kid like me. I had SO many allergies, I can't even list them all because I truthfully don't know. She discovered my soy allergy before that was a known allergy, and she discovered it without taking me to see a specialist, just by noticing that it was a filler in many of my trigger foods. Keep in mind these foods were processed and had a lot of ingredients in them, so to pin it down was impressive. My allergies also impacted my lungs, so at all times as a small child I had to keep my inhalers and epi pen on hand. These essential items haven't always been affordable, we were lucky that we had support of other family when necessary, sometimes even needing to get another family member with the same prescription to buy for me with their insureance, whatever we needed to do to survive.

Growing up was pretty hard with all of my allergies, I was an only child, and my mom didn't trust many people to watch over me. She accepted that I preferred blocks and cars over Barbies, and that I wanted the Spider-Man sneakers over the Dora ones. I always had a very close relationship with my mother, and accepted into my life whatever partner she had, who often moved in.

One day my mother came home to tell me she had a girlfriend, and of course I accepted with open arms. It also made it so much easier to tell her when I told her I too, was into women. The funny thing is that most people recount a time where they 'came out' to their parents. I casually mentioned my interest in a girl, to which she said she knew the day would come.

There were many ways I grew up that were unconventional and not typical, but I always felt that I was loved above all. I will forever be inspired on my mother's values she taught me, from rejecting gender roles, acceptance for differences, and for penny pinching all that she needed in order to keep a roof over my head. I know my upbringing was different, and I am forever grateful for it.