Lessons Learned

My brother and I's childhood consisted of one constant: our mother. After our dad left when I was a toddler and my brother was a newborn, our years were a whirlwind of new homes and new families. There were new people to meet, new rules to adjust to, and new schools to navigate. I have had three father figures and a total of six ex-siblings, and this resulted in a fear of abandonment and a distrust of people who promise they'll stick around. But my mother has always made it clear that the three of us - me, my brother, and my mom - are a package deal. “We’re the three musketeers,” she says. “We stick together, no matter what.”

My mother is refreshingly imperfect - she is known to scream curse words, encourages ice cream for dinner, and is unable to sit through an entire movie (even in a movie theater). But if you’re being bullied at school, she will park her car in the parking lot next to the playground during your recess to watch over you. She will stay up all night with you when your body is racked with anxiety, brushing your hair gently as you both watch Grease. She will hide a cellphone in a teddy bear when you go to your dad's in case you need to call her. She always has your back.

My favorite thing about her is that she has always owned up to being flawed, and she is constantly striving to be a better human. It has made it so much easier to accept the flaws in myself and the mistakes I’ve made, and know that all you can do is try harder tomorrow, do better next time.

My mother is an absolute force to be reckoned with, but she is also fragile and overflowing with compassion. She's taught us so many lessons that prepared me for life in ways I could never have imagined, and that I'm forever grateful for. Here are a few of them.

"Create your own happiness, other people can't do it for you."

Mom always tells us that there will be a lot of people telling us what they think we should do with our lives - what we should study, which career we should choose, where we should live, who we should love. But we are never required to follow their advice.

When she was in college, my mother wanted to study art. She dreamed of spending her days painting with acrylics, but her parents told her that wasn't a profitable career. So she became a teacher, then a journalist, then a marketing strategist. "I regret it," she said. "I should have studied art."

She has always encouraged us to follow our passions and speak up for ourselves. No one else will live our life, and we only get one of them.

"You can laugh through it, or you can cry through it, but laughing is more fun."

Humor was a constant in our home growing up. It was my mom's way of dealing with stress and the unknown of the future, and this same tendency to make a joke out of the messy things in life is one I've noticed in myself as well.

When I was in middle school, my mom had a seizure at the dinner table. One minute she was scooping peas up onto her fork, and the next she was shaking violently in her chair, my stepfather rushing over to catch her before she fell.

There is nothing my mother hates more than hospitals. She has snuck out of them during multiple appointments in the past, but this time she was stuck in there for several days. To entertain herself while she was being wheeled from test to test, she would lay flat on the gurney and pull the sheet up over her face as if she were dead, her arm dangling limply over the rail. When someone would walk past, she'd flinch her hand violently and watch them jump in surprise from the corner of her eye. "It was so fun," she said. "But then the nurse came out and said I had to stop because I was scaring people."

"Don't get trapped in the four corners of a box."

Creativity and passion pour out of my mother. She's always told us that something not existing in the world isn't an excuse not to do it, it's an even better reason to make it happen.

She's a firm believer that one can learn to do anything (especially with the help of YouTube videos). With a little research, you can build a table, cut your own hair, or learn to create a website from scratch.

When my brother was in elementary school, he got kicked out of each school my mom put him in (we didn't know it yet, but he was autistic and struggled socially in the classroom). So my mother built him his own school, literally putting together a community space full of classes and resources and people and learning just right for him. I remember spending weekends painting the walls, arranging furniture, and brainstorming programs. It's my favorite example of my mother never taking no for an answer.

"There's so much more love in the world than hate. Hate just sometimes sounds louder."

After being married three times and each one ending in a unique but familiar way, it would be normal for my mother to feel resentful towards all things love and the people who promise it. But somehow she's the opposite; she's so optimistic that love is out there, and she believes in trusting people and the vulnerability that follows. All three of us have been hurt many times by people who claimed to love us, and while I'm a bit weaker than my mother and haven't yet let go of all the negative emotions attached, I'm always trying to be more like her in the way she forgives.

She is forever picturing the love that awaits her. And she is so, so deserving of it.