Marisol ||

I consider myself blessed and lucky for having a mom: from the moment I was taken out of her womb until now, 338 months later. She's been a constant in my life, nothing but supportive, even when she didn't understand my choices and would have rather me do the complete opposite. 

She raised me* the best way that she could. After all, I was her first go at being mother. She is a mother because of me. The thing is, I'm grateful for all she gave me, despite her not having all the tools to be a mother (does anyone who becomes a parent have all the tools to become a parent?).

I'm grateful for her, but this was not always the case. Once upon a time, I wished she wasn't my mother. I wished she was someone else, that she used different words when speaking with me, that she treated me in some other way. Instead of communicating this, I did the next best thing: I resented her for the most part of my teenage years.

When I say my she didn't have all the tools to be a mother, I mean that her own mother didn't have them either, so how could my grandma (may her soul rest in peace) pass them on? My mother lacked many things growing up: money, of course (she's one of 10 children); physical affection, words of encouragement, positive role models... She was born into this idea that women had a limited role and that you should fit into society's expectations of you.

It's not like I was (or am) of the subversive type. I just leaned a lil bit outside the norm. On the fringes, I guess?

So, because of all the things that my mom lacked, she developed some traumas that metastasized on her daughter. 

My mom went to university while raising me, and this resulted in her being away for most part of the day when I was a child. I had to be about 7 or 8 years old when this happened. One night, she got home exhausted, starving, sweaty, frustrated. I, after not having seen her all day, wanted to welcome her with a hug because I missed her (dear ol' needy Jayza). So I go in for my hug but she stops me in my tracks, saying: no te me pegues que estoy hedionda. Completely understandable, but neither of us was expecting that to be the catalyst of me disliking** physical affection.

Many years later, she told me that her mom would not hug her as a child. In her household, that was unheard of. Therefore, she's not naturally physically affectionate. She learned to be for me and my brother. But I was already damaged: I will not initiate physical affection lest it's rejected. 

The more I understand myself, the better I've come to understand my mom. It's helped me come to peace with so many of the negative feelings I had towards her. It's healed me, truly. 

One thing I've been understanding more and more about myself, it's my undiagnosed anxiety. I've read a lot about it, enough to recognize some of the symptoms I've experienced from a young age. In the past year, I started recognizing some of these in my mom as well, which took me down memory lane, and now I can pinpoint the times in which I've seen my mom experience anxiety. Ultimately, this realization has made me want to unburden her from it, but I don't even know where to start.

This week I've seen her use this emoji 🥲 a lot and it's the most endearing thing ever. She's used it when telling me about her progress with COVID. Today she mentioned she couldn't drink coffee because it was making her cough 🥲. 

The emoji reminded me of something that I learned from her a long, long time ago. I used to be all over her when she was studying; I would read her notes and pour over them,  not understanding shit, but happy to be included. I once asked her why she put OJO on some paragraphs, so she explained to me that she used it when the thing she highlighted was extra important, so the OJO meant she had to pay extra attention to that. But get this, she used to make the o's as eyes and the j as a nose and then add a little smiling mouth below it***. Her notes used to be filled with happy faces.

And of course, growing up, my notes used to be filled with OJO turned into a happy face.

I'm just so glad that I've moved past my resentment. I'm glad I'm mature enough to finally realize that she loves me in a language I couldn't understand. I've been learning, and I've started loving her in a language she can fully comprehend. 

*This is not dad-erasure. My dad has been as much a part of my development as my mom.  

**I say dislike because that's the best way to describe my feelings when people try to be physically close to me, but it's so much deeper than that. More on this when I (finally) talk to a psychotherapist.

***Tutorial on how to make a happy face from OJO: