It can’t possibly be that I am the only mother who struggles as she looks through old photographs of her babies when big milestones come about. I’m preparing to see my second child graduate high school during a time where social distancing has robbed us all of those feel good moments of celebratory events. Instead, we’re checking out devices for anything new and exciting other than the steady increased numbers of COVID-19 cases…whether they are fabricated or not.
We are doing our best to swim through a swamp of conspiracy theories and economic ruin from the powers that be. However, a second stimulus check looks fantastic about now. What can we pay off? What can we buy?! Where can we take this boy to celebrate the 4.0 GPA that he will merely get a piece of paper for because he didn’t see the use in applying for scholarships if there wasn’t going to be a graduation ceremony.
My first son’s milestone slipped up on me way too fast. He chose to graduate the second semester of his Junior year in high school and fled for the Marine Corps to carry on a generational tradition. I have slid by the seat of my pants to celebrate all of his accomplishments in his career and personally in his marriage and now children. Because taking pictures is not an expensive task anymore, we snap them for every little thing. They eat up storage space on our devices and can easily become a photographic soup of jumbled years stock piled from devices over the years.
But there was a time when smart devices weren’t as prominent. This was especially so for the financially challenged. And that was the whole part of my life while my babies were small. Back in the 90’s and early 2000’s, people like me barely owned a 35 mm camera. And when we filled up the camera roll, it sat in little back tubes until income tax season…some five years later. Today, it may seem so difficult to get that perfect shot. Take. Re-take. Edit and photoshop. Today is a difficult day for me. I found a great app that takes negatives and saves them as the actual photographs taken years ago.
I have this plastic bin that I have crammed envelop after envelope in which contain developed film over those specific years. I decided to break it out and see if any of the miscellaneous negatives contained any baby pictures of my 2020 COVID-19 Senior. There were much more than I could sift through and scan.
Those amateur/candid shots were painful to look at. They were carefully taken and they captured way more than some precious faces I truly loved so much back then. Today they are painful because as I study them, I know that those precious faces were robbed of a youth just as much as I was robbed of the confidence and worthiness to be a better mother. Now that I am older, the sting of my choices and words I have absorbed become a continued black cloud of resentment that visits from time to time.
I have been known to be mean. Words I have said can be carefully selected to cut like a knife intentionally. I guess we grow up and grow out of specific ways to get our points across. But old injustices don’t go away. They come back to re-visit from time to time. It’s like old wounds being refreshed. When that happens, a more powerful rage can consume you. The unfair part is when you try with all of your might to be the better person and just let it run its’ course, you are never good enough and you settle constantly in that classification. You do so because you know you had it coming to you. You know why. Because you made stupid decisions without thinking about anyone but yourself. You take the beating in words because you don’t want to take the “I told you so.” or “What did you THINK was going to happen?”. You take the words and differential treatment because it’s nobody else’s fault but your own that you are laying in the bed you made. Or my personal favorite, “You’re never going to amount to anything more than this. This is the best you will ever get. This is all you’ll ever be good enough for.” Still you strive and work harder for approval. Validation.
“I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” ~Maya Angelou
In 2010, I began a journey that has drastically changed how I feel about myself and my sinful past. Jesus was never lost. I was. So I occasionally would read my bible and if that wasn’t clear enough, I would find myself sitting at the edge of my seat in the very back pew closest to the exit door of my oldest boys favorite church to frequent. What I didn’t know was that God was working in me. He was saving me from myself just as I’d pray before I either passed out from exhaustion or drunkenness I chose to escape words and actions of others. (Side note: I’m certainly not with out sin now. My perspective of self worth comes from God who has never given up on me, so I try to cater to Him who has my best interest at heart)
Around 2012, some precious soul sisters helped me embark on my own personal walk and journey with Christ. There were just too many painful things that I could not apply to anything in the bible because I didn’t understand any of it. I knew I needed help. I needed something more powerful than a third or fourth job or case of beer to get me past it. I needed something to distract me from things I just knew were all I’d ever be good enough for. I needed peace. I needed validation that it is okay to love myself enough to cut toxic people off. The hard part was accepting that those toxic people gave their very best to others, but for me, I was not and would never be good enough. Becoming okay with that is the hardest battle. I’ve come a long way.
Most know my love story that led me to my forever. But I’ll bring the skinny of it right here. After decades of failed relationships and finally doing my best to be obedient to God, I began to wait patiently for who He had for me. After almost two years, one night I intently and tearfully petitioned that God reveal who He had reserved for me RIGHT NOW! I was tired of doing it alone. The very next day, a childhood friend whom I’ve known since I was 12 reappeared into my life. We have been inseparable since. It took two weeks to be asked on a date and one second after twenty years of not seeing each other that we both knew something special was about to happen. We married two years later and as of today, we have been together six total years. He is my best friend. He reminds me of my biblical worth often. He makes me remember the old Taira before life happened and choices and actions of myself or others branded me.
So back to this amateur photography. I see old things like this and it breaks me. Tears well up and I can’t stop them from falling. That picture holds so much love and trust. Innocence. Comfort. Fatigue. Wishes. Fears. In a time where I really and truly did not know who I was…one thing was for sure. I was theirs’. And they belonged to me. They depended completely on me. The hell I went through with my own insecurities and failures while trying to fight a battle I was destined to lose is bitter sweet today.
I’ve been told that my battles as a single mother are long gone. Nobody cares about that anymore. I bring up those struggles and I should just get over myself. I’ve been told even my children are sick of it…to which they deny ever feeling that way towards me. These are the same children I’ve been told that would make me a grandmother before I was 35. I was a terrible mother was all that said to me. I wasn’t a good mother because I rarely was there. Someone was always taking care of my babies. Never mind the fact that child support ceased to be a court ordered reality. Or court ordered visitation was only reduced to what was convenient for the other parent. What a joke. Always a fight. Always a struggle. Always a second, third or fourth job. Of course my children didn’t see me much when they were tiny. And that, I’m still angry about and will always have some sort of resentment. Because that was during a time where I needed someone to really support me emotionally and guide me spiritually. Instead, I always had to find a second, third or fourth back up plan for “my bratty kids” that no one wanted to watch because I refused to spend my whole two or three hours I got to see them, reminding them how unworthy they were of things or love. “I” didn’t deserve love. In fact, it brought a smile on some peoples faces and gave them something to talk about behind my back when whatever relationship I thought was real was actually a naive moment on my behalf again. Nobody is ever going to want a woman with three young children. But these are all things I should just get over because they are in the past. Just words….
Looking at that photograph, I see three of the most perfect things I’ve ever done. Someone else would see only a dingy couch covered in cheap blankets, an 8 year old taking care of his baby brothers unfairly, a two year old with a dirty face and feet, in a run down farm house that probably shouldn’t have even been rented out. But it was home. It was warm. And when I got to be there, it was simple and way before words ever scarred my mind, heart and soul.
My second baby boy is graduating high school in two weeks. We’ve come a long way from that photograph. Through all my errors and mistakes, God continues to bless us and give us one more day to get it right. My children are mapping their own way and making their own choices. It’s hard to not want to control that with all this spare time on my hands (thanks COVID). But I guess I’ll get over myself and celebrate his milestone. It could have gone way differently.
If all I’m ever good enough for is to be truly loved by those who have believed in me and looked past my flaws and imperfections enough to gain from me something good to pay forward…I’m good with that. That’s all I need.