Going...Going...Gone

Written by Me

I’m not at the end of the journey. I’ve only just begun. I have been traveling the path my mother started for me. The one she set me on at the beginning of life. My values were hers. My reasoning hers. The very air I breathed, hers. She wasn’t a bad mother, but a woman with strong constitution. One who believed strongly in her vision and the road that should be traveled. So, here I am at forty-five wobbling along with one foot still on my mother’s path and the other straining to take another direction.

Mother always said I was a difficult child, strong-willed and rebellious. Perhaps then, that is why I have survived. Survived to tell the tale of one woman’s journey.

I was born the first of two children, the oldest by birth. With this station came certain responsibilities and certain disappointments. I learned early that things did not always happen the way you dreamed and things could be taken from you without your consent. I learned that sometimes, the child takes care of the adult and that marriages don’t always work. I learned that women often stay in bad marriages so they won’t be alone or to achieve financial security. I learned long-suffering and endurance in the face of adversity. Above all, I learned not to displease my mother.

In time, these values were passed to me without my consent and without my knowledge. Perhaps it was for the good of me. Whatever it may have been I have set forth on the journey and cannot turn back. As time goes forward, I learn who this woman is and who she will become, what her beliefs and values are and whether her relationship will ever return to what it once was with her mother.

Perhaps this is not a story of her journey, but of her mother’s. Time will tell and perhaps it will tell the story well.