Learning to love

One of the most significant things I learned about myself during my winter of soul searching was that as a child my family, whole family abandoned me in so many ways. But even so, I cannot and will not use that as an excuse. I will rise above it. I will rise above watching my father beat my mother when she was pregnant, causing her to have many miscarriages. 

Forget at 4 years old clinging to my mother in the front seat of the car while my father tried to push her out of a moving vehicle. Forget my father finally leaving us, only to pick us up every Sunday to drop us off at Gramma's so he can go be with his girlfriends. 

I will not be victimized by the fact that his whole family turned their back on me so that I grew up not knowing my cousins, my aunts and my uncles. I had no sense of family. 

I will rise above the fact that I was raised by a mother who did not know this country's ways, but she did the best that she could for us. She really did. She really did not show me what a true mother daughter relationship was. All I can remember since I was small was that she somehow was hoping she could make money off me, she sent me to so many schools, dancing, acting, charm school and modeling schools. She was so disappointed in me because I never became famous and rich for her. Her mantra was always, marry a rich doctor. I will not blame her for favoring my brother over me all the time. Even to the point of hiding food from me to give only to him. 

Yep I could really wallow in all this abandonment. And maybe I did in the beginning of my life. I did so many things wrong because I had no one in my life to teach me how to love my family. Now I have learned how to love the people that mean so much to me. I created my own family. They may not be blood relation but I love these people fiercely. I am still learning but I think I am doing so much better than I did in my early life. It may be too late to save any relationships with my real family. It may be too late to ever be a real mother to my daughter. The most important thing in my life to me now is to try to be "something" to my daughter. A friend, a supporter, someone she can trust. This is going to be the hardest thing I have ever done it my life. And it is the most important. More important than anything or anyone in my life. I will not give up. What I don't know, I will learn. I want to listen and to be there. I will be there.