At around age fifteen, I began noticing that my mother's life and my life were mirroring each other except it was happening at different ages of our existence. Different things she had experienced, I would later come to experience usually around a decade, or so, later.
She would always tell me that she wanted better for me than what she had. She wanted me to do and be better and that one day I would want the same for my own children. I understood exactly what she meant back then, despite not having my first child until years later. I carry this thought with me often, and I am beginning to think, subconsciously, she has managed to imprint her will into my DNA.
She had my sister at age 22. Seven years later she had me, her second. She eventually remarried and had my two brothers before they divorced. My father was financially secure, yet emotionally unavailable. Her second husband was a wonderful father (at first) but financial troubles on his end, strained their relationship beyond repair. She says she will never marry again but I know...or maybe it is hope... she has one last great love in her.
I had my first child, a girl, at age 31. My ex-husband was more like her second and the same issues that slowly ate away at her marriage, quickly devoured mine. Interestingly, mom and I are both at the same exact stage of our lives at present, 30 years apart. Waiting for our last great loves to arrive and I wonder, as I grow closer to 38, if it is possible to have my last child, a son, but I don't quite know how my story ends, because she is still living it.
Now, of course, I don't want anyone who reads this to assume too much. My mom had two girls with one marriage and two boys with another. I had one girl with one marriage so far and that is all. I am not saying, better means having less children or less marriages exactly. And I am still young, I could fall in love three or four more times in my lifetime or start popping out a few kids here and there. But knowing myself, that is not likely to be true.
And yes, I do know that my mother had four children and I am the only one being compared here. But to know her and to know me, you would understand that we are not simply mother and daughter, but twins born 30 years apart. We think the same, we act the same, we laugh at the same things. Even the great loves we describe to each other are exactly...wait for it...the same. It's cosmic and I hope that my daughter and I are just as lucky.
All I am really saying here is, my mother wanted better for me...not you...and her better meant that I could find one person to exist with until death came and that our children, however many we had, weren't bouncing around, or dealing with evil stepparents, like hers had.
Now obviously I am not perfect, because maybe I should've waited for my greatest love, but shit I am impatient, and I know that my daughter is meant to be here. One day, I'll tell her how much I want her to be better than me, do some imprinting of my own, and if I am being hopeful, she just might get it exactly right.
These are my random thoughts for today.