I Love My Mom

I do not have enough fingers to count how many people in the world promote the wellness of others and encourage those people to know they are good enough. My mom is not one of those people. I have not truly ever felt good enough in her eyes. Your parents, especially your mom, are supposed to be there to push you, but not push you down. At least I thought so. Your mom was just a little girl once too. As for me, it does not seem like my mom feels compassion for my thoughts or feelings. It is almost like she cannot relate to anything I go through. Parents say they are "just preparing you for the outside world," and while that may be their duty, sometimes their harsh teachings can end up ruining your outlook on the concept of family and love. Thankfully,

It is really hard to imagine my mom being a young girl. She is so tough, hard, and rigid that it does not seem like anyone could pry her open with a crowbar. I thought you had kids so you could love them. I thought that once you found your soul mate, you two decided you had enough love between the both of you to share among children. That is what I want. But it feels like my mom only has a set amount of love to divide evenly between my sister and dad. I am the youngest child, and I feel left behind.

First thing in the morning I hear, "Get your lazy fat ass out of bed!" It might not seem like a big deal, but hearing that every day definitely breaks a young woman down. I stay upstairs, doing my hair and makeup just how I think she would like it. She always says I need to look my best. So I sit in the mirror for what feels like hours pulling and stretching and tweezing my face to get rid of any imperfections she might notice. "Hurry up Hannah, quit fooling around!" I hear coming from the foyer. I am late again. The day begins and I almost get left behind. I get to school and I am hounded with texts from my mom asking me if I have

The most annoying, loud, obnoxious, 8th grader at Dawson-Bryant. People still look at me as that little girl and I struggle to make friends because of my past. I am determined to show people the real me, not the person that begged for positive attention from peers because I did not receive any at home. In college, I am going to put everything I have into my future. I have not lost hope yet because I know it has to get better. This is not the life God planned for me. I have a world of opportunities ahead of me and in this moment, I want to start over. I want to move on from my past because I cannot honestly say I lived more good moments than bad moments. People handle things differently and not many people could look at me and guess that this has been going on my entire life. That makes me think about all the other people that experience this too. My heart aches for them and I want to meet them and be there for them like Alex was for me. In some ways, he pulled me out of a hole I dug myself and climbed in. I was not the girl my mom wanted me to be and I didn't do much to change it because positive behavior was never rewarded. As someone who was always picked last for the team in gym and in my family, I felt alone, and now it feels so good to finally have a teammate. For the first time in what feels like a lifetime am I able to say I was picked first. A friend is someone I needed all along. The hope I found in friends is being saved for