Image source: Merlina McGovern
Ah, so this post is a day late. I had a bit of a meltdown this weekend. When I was first laid off from a job I had been at for 17 years, I was filled with an enormous amount of energy and purpose. I jumped into editorial freelancing with vim and vigor. Still, as the months go on, I will have days where the pain of that layoff wallops me, and I will feel down and glum and unsure of myself.
Whenever that happens, I know that I can call my mom. We talk on the phone almost every day. She can make me laugh from deep down in my belly like no one else can, and, after talking to her, I know that all will be OK with the world.
I won’t say that it is such a cliche to say that your mom is your rock. I know that mother-child relationships can be fraught or nonexistent. And I know that I am very lucky and privileged to say that my relationship with my mother is strong and fills me with inspiration. Watching how she has handled her life and learning life lessons from her is something that someone could do with someone who isn’t their mom. The key is having someone that is there for you, warts and all, because they too are human and with faults. They can be vulnerable and strong and they love you for being vulnerable and strong.
Of course, there are ups and downs in my relationship with my mom, as there are with any relationship. My mother would always praise me, but she would also tell me exactly where I messed up, too, even when all I wanted to hear was praise. After a particularly tough piano practice that I was pretty proud of, she would say, “Nice job, sweetie, but you know I could hear all the mistakes, too.” And there were the knock-down drag out fights during my teenage years. I look back on them now and realize that she was only trying to keep me safe (no, you can’t go to that football game, where there were rumors of gang threats; no, you can’t stay out late, you have to study).
There are two traits, in particular, that my mother taught me that continue to inspire me every day.
Courage. My mother was born in the Philippines and traveled across the world, leaving her family behind when she met my father. He was a young US Marine who wooed her by taking her to 70s martial arts movies. In the Philippines, students learn English at an early age, but she knew that she would need to improve her English here, and she strengthened it by reading books (like Leon Uris’ Exodus) and tabloid magazines (like US Weekly and People). She jumped into the project of this cross-global adventure whole-heartedly and moved forward despite her fears. Whenever I’m feeling overwhelmed by life’s stresses, I think about how she did this, moving to a country where she had no friends or family -- and she thrived, living her best life. I know that I can handle anything because I have her courageous blood running through my veins.
Resilience. With my father being in the military and because we had to move around constantly, my mother had to work to help our family make ends meet. She picked up any job she could, whether that was carrying heavy TV frames to and fro at a Sumitomo manufacturing plant on a night shift, cleaning rooms at a military barracks, or babysitting for local military families, she did anything and everything that she could to support our family. And even with all of that, she always made time to help with homework or listen to our friendship and relationship highs and lows.
Like my mother, I traveled far away from my home to be with the one that I love. Even though I had my friends and family network settled, I packed up and moved from Berkeley, California, all the way to Boston, Massachusetts. I don’t often think of myself as a courageous person, but looking back on that move, leaving a city that I knew, a place where my friends and family were close, to re-settle myself in a new city with no support network, I realize that my mother had indeed instilled in my her courage and sense of adventure. I can only hope that I am able to share those same character traits with my own daughter.
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