Originally, my plan was to avoid explanation for my newest tattoo - but since I'm an open book; why not? Most of you who know me are well aware that my mother is a heroin addict. Those closest to me have dealt with the many mixed emotions I have for my mother. I spent most of my childhood, as I'm sure my siblings did also, trying to understand why I wasn't enough to help my mother get better - to get sober. My siblings and I were forced to lead a life we weren't fully prepared for; we were often hungry, abused and mostly just plain neglected as a result of my mother's addiction. Somehow, we managed. We overcame it all (some better than others). Looking back really reminds me just how resilient my siblings and I truly are. We often times don't look back, though. When we do talk about our childhood, we laugh - mostly to keep from crying. Our childhood was not typical of what children should experience. Sometimes, I get so wrapped up in building some elite future with a very detailed outline and action plan that I actually forget just how far I've come. My mother, on the other hand, is still an addict. I'd like to pretend that her addiction is her's alone; but that just isn't true. Her poor choices. Her selfishness. Her addiction is a burden I've had to bear and not by choice. My circumstances may not define me but my experiences certainly are a reflection of the person I am today. I've spent a lot of time choosing to ignore the obvious. I thought when I got older that I would be completely in control of my own life and for the most part I am. I thought that when I became an adult I would fit in more. I thought that hanging out with friend's would be less awkward, because we would be adults and talk about adult experiences. I was wrong. What I didn't know is that once you reach adulthood, your adult friends still talk about their childhood experiences (probably more than they did as a teenager). I am still the odd one out. I will never fit in or be normal. I can't openly discuss sleeping on dirty blankets with my siblings to keep warm in the winter because our electricity was off and think that such a discussion will be any less awkward as an adult than it was as a child. I am damn near 30 years old and only slightly accepting that my life and my experiences may never be socially acceptable. So, today, I got a tattoo -- for my mother. Maybe even for myself, I'm not sure yet. There are a lot of people (mainly my family) who wouldn't understand; they are angry for me. They resonate with my resentment and why I have completely removed my mother from my life for the sake of my own sanity. When you care about an addict; it's really hard to separate that person from the actual addiction (next to impossible when that person is supposed to be your parent). Listening to my aunt and my grandmother talk about my mother before drugs reminds me that she was once sober and somewhat upstanding. It's like listening to stories of folk tales and magic, that's how hard it is to believe that my mother was drug-free. When I was 14, I worked at a hotel and McDonald's over the summer. I spent my paychecks on detox clinics in an effort to get my mother clean. It didn't work. In that time, however, she told me a story that stuck with me. I was her first born and she told me that when she was pregnant with me she tried very hard to remain sober. She told me that my father bought her a rose bush and she would stare at the buds of the rose when she would wake up from being in and out of sleep; she said she was clean for 30 days. That's the longest my mother has ever been sober. It may be the only time she'll ever be sober again. Either way, something in those roses helped her maintain some existence of sobriety. I may never speak to my mother again, but that doesn't mean that I don't wish for her to have a better life. This rose (that I now have permanently tattooed on my body) is for her...but, also for me. It is reclaiming hopefulness despite the constant suffrage. Shelly, I hope the roses reach you in time and I forgive you.
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