In Searching For My Mom, I Found Myself
This post is a part of a special series Mom/Me: An exploration of motherhood and beyond. This collection of poetry, essays, and visual media showcase the many facets of motherhood and our relationship to it. In partnership with Mater Mea.
By Meridith Malloy
One thing is for sure: I am my mother’s child.
I have her loud mouth, her sass, her fight, and her love. Sometimes it seems like I may have been born out of spite for the things she did to her mother, like she says I was.
Listen, I love my mom and I know she loves me, but in regards to our relationship, well, “it's complicated.” And the complexities of our relationship have undoubtedly shaped who I am not only as a woman but especially as I am a mother.
She Did The Best She Could...
I vaguely recall my childhood with my mom: going shopping at the Galleria and eating Pizza Hut in White Plains, New York; mom coming home with bags and bags from Macy’s after work. We enjoyed all the Black comedy shows (namely Family Matters on TGIF) and old classics like I Love Lucy and The Golden Girls (all of which we both still enjoy with my daughter). She busted her ass getting two master’s degrees in the early ‘90s. The fridge was always stocked—she did giant food hauls at BJ’s and Costco—and Christmases gifts were always stacked.
I have much more settled memories surrounding the trauma of my youth. I don’t remember spending much one-on-one time with my mom. I do remember her always struggling to do my very thick hair, it being a PROCESS we both hated, so much so that around 8 she sent me to the salon for a perm and never touched it again. I do remember long summer drives to the airport, starting from the age of 5, for even longer solo flights to stay with other family members. Four weeks in California, three weeks in South Carolina with my grandparents. I do not remember a summer spent with my mother outside of one trip to Disney at the age of 5.
It became clear from a young age that my mother did the best she could with the information she had and what she believed she could do for me at the time. You know, she was a single mom, raising two kids, in and out of toxic relationships, working three jobs to support her children and a shopping habit. She was suffering from her own afflictions and unresolved (or even unknown) trauma. She operated out of fear and confusion, doing what she thought was necessary, and she made some big sacrifices.
As I think about it, my mother sacrificed her life, dreams, and perhaps her happiness to provide for me and my brother. But in being so lost in her life, she also sacrificed me.