Story of our lives.....

I’m addicted to memoirs. I’m not sure what it is that captivates me so but I cannot get enough of them. I find others lives fascinating – Mostly I read things having to do with psychology or the human mind and its ability to overcome traumatic events.

I’ve recently been reading a lot of books about people in foster care or who have encountered some type of abuse as a child. I think I cling to these books heavily as a source and way to move past my own traumatizing events. I find a common bond with the writers in which many of us share a hatred for the Child Protection systems and foster cares. While I never had to deal with a foster home first hand – I can only imagine the horror stories, but I also am able to see that there are good people who want more than a paycheck, who want to help people get better. And then I realize I am drawn to these memoirs because they allow me the knowledge that I am certainly not alone and they allow me to see how others cope with their own abandonment or abuses. It gives me ideas on ways to conquer my own demons.

I just stayed up reading a book I got from the bookstore yesterday called Three Little Words in which one [now] semi-famous girl Ashley, recounts her years in the foster care system where she endured harsh homes as well as adequate ones.

As I’m reading this book I feel a lump grow in my throat every time she talks about her love for her biological mother. How her mother was able to hold a hard grasp over her and the power and desire she had to be with her mother despite her own knowledge of her mothers instabilities. The lump I felt was my own need and connection with my own mother. How like the author, I always believed that my mother could and would change because she wanted my siblings and I. And while she may have wanted us and she loved us and like Ashley's mother, she was unable to conquer her own demons.

It’s interesting how much I clung to the need for my mother to be around, how much I cling to the idea of having a mother, even though I feel that time has long passed for me. I have several Stand-in mothers, unfortunately none of them can touch the want and need I have for my own mother. I find that my resentment towards her stupidity and actions make me hate her but love her still the same. It’s the torn emotions that really get to me and I saw these same conflicting emotions in Ashley story. Her story truly spoke to me.