I Already Did It

I already did it.

My biggest fear has always been that I will turn out to be just like my mom. That would look like watching TV all day every day, not having any meaningful and loving relationships with anyone, little to no hygiene, being severely overweight all while feeling like I had no control or power to change any aspect of that life.

So the most important goal I have had my entire life was to not be like my mother.

And tonight I realized, I already did it. I already achieved that goal.

I have spent much of my life fearing that one day I would end up just like her - in a loveless marriage, dependent on someone else for food and shelter, unable to care for herself, spending her time literally doing nothing but watching television, substantially overweight, yet somehow still married and alive, but not really living. I really thought it could happen at any point in my life rather quickly without even noticing.

But no matter what I decide, I will not become my mother. Because I have always had something my mom hasn't had for more than my lifetime. Self-awareness. I look back on my life until I hit rock bottom, and I realize that I was living on auto-pilot. I was in survival mode. Not really living. But even during most of my life, I still had some level of awareness that I was not okay. 

Part of me thinks that had I not awakened out of living subconsciously, I may have ended up just like her. But I think, even if I had continued on in survival mode, I still wouldn't have become her. 

By my age, my mom had married my dad and had 2 little kids about a year and a half apart. She was completely dependent on my dad to provide for her, all the while being mentally unstable. Yet for some years she put on a facade to the world that everything was fine, even though her life was anything but fine. And when I was 9 years old, the facade began to shatter.

I consider myself a recovering perfectionist, so it makes sense that up until tonight I still thought that there was a chance I would end up just like my mom. While I know anything is possible and there is a tiny change I still could, the odds are in my favor. I know too much. I am too aware. I have done too much work. I have already achieved the goal of not becoming my mother. 

At 33 years old, I refuse to settle in any of my relationships. Because I want them to add to my life. I watched my mother let her relationship with my father eat away at her life. And I am not going to let any kind of relationship do the same to me. I expect more from life than to merely waste away. Devastatingly enough, my mom hasn't had that luxury for most of my life. I would prefer to live instead of watching life pass me by. And I'm doing it. I'm living and being intentional with who I let be apart of my life.

I already did it. Even though I am just beginning down a path of change, I already became someone who looks nothing like my mother. And no matter what I do or who I become, I will never be her - the mother who was not a mother to me. For achieving that one goal, I will always be proud.