No Longer a Daughter

I remember my mom telling me that time moves faster the older we get. She was probably my age when she said it. I couldn't quite imagine the world going any faster than what it already was and if the truth be told, I probably dismissed her words of wisdom, like I often did. She has been gone for two years now and I would give almost anything to sit with her and have her talk about anything. She was a very intuitive woman and often saw the good and bad in a person long before I did. She saw character flaws and deceit like it was painted on a person's skin. I didn't inherit that gift from her. I, instead, see the good until I am forced to peel back the layers.

Who are are if we are not the people we surround ourselves with? When I left California, it was because I felt my moral compass slipping and needed a recalibration in the safety of my childhood home. That home was still there then, still housing the people I counted on to do the recalibration. They are no longer there and any needed recalibration must happen internally, guided by my beliefs. Nobody else can do it.

There are people I have kept from my time in California and others I left behind because they made me a less good version of myself, they encouraged me to let my morals slide, to accept what was unacceptable. It wasn't a decision as much as a natural falling away of people who no longer fit the season I had moved into. The world is filled with good, decent people who do not share fundamental beliefs or guiding principles. What makes a person a good fit for a lifetime or just a season?

I married a man with all the qualities my father would have wanted me to have in a man. He's a hard worker and has made his family, me, and his three kids, the center of his life. Everything he does, he does for his family. His desires, selfish or otherwise, are filtered based on how they serve the family. He has made me a better version of myself every day he has been with me. We have the same value system and for both of us, our family is the center. He encourages me to be the best version of myself. Thank God I married a man who was able to grow with me through the stages of our life. 

Over the past year or so, I have struggled with finding time and inspiration to write. I've had no words for a page outside of what was required for my day jobs. Maybe I have just been grieving to loss of my mother for all of this time. Maybe it was just that the toxic world was crushing me. It is crushing all of us. I have been a peacemaker, willing to overlook the bad in a person to find a kernel of good. Suddenly, I seem unable to unsee the flaws. The season is changing in my life. I am no longer a daughter, with the need to placate and ease everybody else. That part of my identity has melted away.

I passed some invisible line with that sudden understanding. People aren't inherently good. People are selfish and hedonistic when they are allowed to walk through life without consequences or responsibility. When I was young, I was selfish and hedonistic, only interested in my happiness. I shirked my responsibilities and life was a constant struggle. My soul was empty. It was not satisfying. Then I met Jeff and his son. We got married and had our girls. Every day of my life since has been lived for others. My happiness and desires, selfish or otherwise, are no longer the priority. Life is best done when lived for the benefit of others, not for the benefit of self. Accepting what I have been trying not to see is like unlocking a door. Words are floating free and loose in my mind again, making me wonder where they were locked away. Were they buried with my grief? Were they buried with the part of me that was trying so hard not to change and grow? Were they buried in my refusal to admit that my faith was transforming me?

My mother's ability to see beneath the skin of another person seems to have finally been gifted to me. Was it rooted in her faith, is that what I was missing? Mom couldn't unsee what she had seen about a person, no matter how many times I told her she was wrong.

Looking back, she was always right.