the first person i loved and hated

forgiving my mother and understanding my childhood

I’ve learned to forgive my mother, but sometimes I can't be around her

I recently finished the book, The Paper Palace, about a woman who goes on a summer vacation with her whole family, devoted husband, and her childhood best friend's whole family, the man she grew up with and is still in love with. Throughout the book, there were so many similarities to my childhood, it was honestly hard to read. I usually speed through books, but this one I had to put down and pick up so many times because it tugged at a part of me I don’t really like to address or think about. A part of my life, I have tried over and over again to rewrite a new story. A different meaning to why everything happened the way it did. I'm a writer. As soon as I learned how to speak and write, I was obsessed with writing stories, making up characters, and imagining my stories come to life through a book or TV screen. But when it comes to my childhood and the past, through therapy, workshops, and coaching, I can’t seem to find a new meaning, a new story that empowers me, makes me feel better, or uplifts me to a new identity. So I just try to forget about it. Suppress it down to the bottom of my mind, somewhere in the depths of my subconscious, where I hope to never find it again. But it's always there.