Holiday Happenings

Mother’s Day

Not all holidays are good days for everyone. Today is Mother’s Day, a day we celebrate the women in our lives who raised us. How can that be bad, you wonder? How can Zarine be such a terrible person that she hates a day celebrating motherhood? Well, I’m here to tell you why not everyone gets big happy feels on this day.

No, my dears, I am not trying to steal your joy. If you have a mother that is wonderful, or are a mother who thinks you're wonderful, then by all means, please celebrate that. But there are many reasons that some people might struggle with sharing in that joy. Everyone’s story is different and I will not pretend to understand the struggles of others, only my own, so I am going to do something I rarely do. I am going to share something deeply personal with you about my childhood.

I never had a mom, only a mother. If you don’t understand the difference between the two, I envy you. I wasn’t nurtured or loved. I was a mistake and I always knew it. The woman required more care from me than she returned. She caused more harm than she could ever repair. I grew up in a constant state of danger, with the person who was supposed to protect me from it right there doing nothing but making it worse.

I haven’t seen her since I was eight. I don’t know if she’s even alive. I only allow myself to think about her once a year, and today is the day. Every year I lock myself away in my room and mourn the loss of something I never had. Then the guilt comes. She’s my mother, I’m supposed to love her no matter what, right? And I know that it wasn’t her fault, not entirely. I was born into a cycle of abuse and addiction that she didn’t know how to break. I feel like after over 30 years I should have forgiven her, but I haven’t and I never will. I will take this resentment with me to the grave. Mother’s Day to me has always been a yearly reminder that I’ve never had an older female role model in my life. A reminder that the only example my mother provided were bad ones, that she didn’t want me, that she’d have sold me for a half empty bottle and a pack of smokes.

I never had children for many reasons, but mostly because I worried that it was hereditary. I wouldn’t be a good mother. I don’t have nurturing instincts. I don’t want a child growing up like I did, surrounded by relationships that are nothing more than business transactions with a mother that doesn’t know the meaning of love.

I hate today, but something happened this year that hasn’t happened in the past. I forgot what day it was. I went down to have breakfast with the girls like I usually do, and they had made me a mother’s day breakfast. I was confused. I’m not their mother, and most of them come from a similar background to my own. I know their stories, and very few of their relationships with their own mothers are heartwarming ones. One by one, they all told me how much they appreciate me and what I have done for them. I gave them a roof over their heads, food in their stomachs, and a warm bed. I gave them a choice in their profession, most chose one that involves selling their bodies, but I teach them to demand respect from the men that pay for their services. Despite my position as The Madam I give them autonomy over their own bodies. Some of them have children that they raise here, and as much as I tend to shy away from them I enjoy having them around. As they spoke to me I realized that these young women do have a strong, older female role model. I didn’t become my mother, our professions are the same in name only. I became everything she wasn’t but that I needed her to be.

You don’t have to be a mother to be an inspiration to people and your inspiration doesn’t have to be your own flesh and blood. People look up to you even when you don’t realize it, they emulate you when you aren’t looking, they see the good and the bad and they learn from it. Every weekend when we all get together there are undoubtedly others who are looking to you for an example of how to live a good life. They see how you carry yourself, how you treat people, and how you react to the world around you. Be the good example you had, or the one you wish you had. You don’t have to have been raised right to become a good person, and you don’t have to have a strong role model to become one yourself.

I do have women in my life that I look up to. Most of them are friends that have become family. Many of them are younger than me. If you think that there is no one worth looking up to, look around. There are plenty of examples of people who have overcome seemingly insurmountable odds to become who they are. If you can’t find anyone, you either aren’t looking hard enough or you need to find new surroundings. No one is perfect, you need to take the bad with the good, but find someone who’s more good than bad. Someone you’d be proud to take after.

If you have a good mother, or someone who fills that role, don’t assume that they know how much they mean to you or that they even know what kind of impact they’ve had on your life. Tell them. You might think they get up every day and look in the mirror and just know how amazing they are, but the truth is more of us don’t do that than do. More of us are alone in our rooms than you will ever know, suffering in silence and thinking that because we had no one that we are no one. Break the cycle. Words can literally change someone’s life. Use them, before it’s too late.