Math class was fun until it turned into a Scrabble hybrid alphabet soup. Sample mean formulas raised my blood pressure and flatlined my grades. I had to figure out a method that worked for me. That led to the rebuke of a “rebellious spirit” I somehow became host to.
Of course, such chastisement only fueled further failure. I wouldn’t conform to formulaic slop. They asked me to show my work, which I did, using my equations. Equations that gave the right answers every time. But correctness mattered less than obedience. When did preserving a system become more important than preserving autonomy?
With Compliance Comes Suffering
I’ve always felt inclined to resist systems that demanded compliance. It wasn’t prejudice against math. My issue is uniformity over individuality. Duplicity enters the equation when questioning is forbidden. Thus allowing puppeteers to pull strings you never noticed.
As I moved away from institutionalized systems, I felt a similar resistance to other arbitrary procedures. Religion, relationships, the workplace, you name it. Expectations exist everywhere. They generate debts no one agreed to incur.
Some parents believe they’ll never step foot in a nursing home, expecting a full return on their investment offered during the child’s formative years. Families have scripts. A daughter and son are to behave as representatives of the entire family. Not who they are as themselves.
The more invested we are in who someone should be, the less room we leave for them to be who they actually are.
Take It. Or Leave It. Don’t Sacrifice It.
Obligation asks us to exchange curiosity, vibrancy, and uniqueness for pennies. Agendas aren’t always forthcoming. And no. You’re not always in attendance when these expectations are established. You, too, have assigned debt without consent. You just may not have noticed.
Poor communication only insults the injury. It holds us at the mercy of emotions, detaches us from reality, and makes us a feast for unfulfillment.
Anger Only Dresses Up Sadness
Failed expectations burn into resentment. Debt racks higher for every out-of-character moment deviated from the script we’ve conjured. One thing about debt is that it rarely resolves itself. How simple it is to forget that everything is a personal choice.
Suffering rules over clarity when people are in deeper relationships with their egos than with anything else. Biological roles aren’t moral obligations. For instance, giving birth makes someone a mother biologically. Nurturing, supporting, and presence remain a choice. How long someone chooses to be a mother is personal, not standard.
So how do we come to terms with letting people be themselves, even at the cost of unfulfillment?
Choice Is Sacred
A few trips around the sun have revealed some simple truths:
Fears hold the map leading toward courage
Sometimes what’s in the way becomes the way
You can’t fix what you can’t break
And I think that’s why motherhood terrified me. I thought I was permanently damaged goods because trauma controlled me. I was unaware of its catalytic nature.
I thought to myself, the worst thing I can be is something someone has to recover from. Unfortunately, fear of being a mother wasn’t a good enough contraceptive. In choosing to be accountable for my actions, I also chose to change the kind of mother he would experience. I want to be a mother, but more importantly, a woman who invests in her child for who he is, not what I want for or from him.
He owes me nothing for my labor of motherhood.
I believe he owes himself the best life he can muster. At this stage, it’s already given me more than I could ever ask for. He is the reward for the diligence I offer. The deal never required him to care for me in my final days. That’s not honor, that’s consideration and devotion. I believe, as with all things, it is earned.
The Price to Pay
All I want for him is to expect the doors of my heart and home to be eternally open. A consistent source of emotional presence, respect, appreciation, and loyal companionship. That’s the personal definition I chose when I became his mommy.
Originally, mommy felt like cat claws on a chalkboard. Too soft. And as time went on, it became a badge I wear honorably. He feels safe enough to melt into me that way. And I became available for him to do so.
An effective mother isn’t bred from minimal effort and ego, even whilst providing basic needs. This realization inspired me to offer something not everyone experiences: unconditional acceptance.
Remember how you felt as a kid? I remember being called the common denominator that I should factor into why I felt so burdensome. There was no room for exploration or reflection, only leftover blame, pulling me deeper into self-hatred.
I almost resented the investment of a mommy, indebting myself to pause my life for a saga yet to reveal its finale. I may never see that fruition. Still, I gladly pay the cost of loving a child in a way they can measure. Offering a love that makes them feel safe, seen, included, heard, and wanted.
That’s when it clicked. What had been a lifelong personal problem became a solution. The same love motherhood taught me to give, taught me to extend it to myself. Only after could I accept my life for what it was, is, and isn’t.
Age is the ebb and flow from your purest form.
Love Your Natural
Pure doesn’t mean perfect. It means natural.
Raw.
Just as life is delivered to us. Valuing every moment for all that it is and isn’t can soften the jagged edges of life. This expansion creates gratitude that soon begins to funnel through the cracks left by unfulfillment.
Maybe expectations aren’t meant to be met. They could be empty promises, outsourcing our own accountability. I only let myself down by setting expectations where choice is the ruler.
As much as I would love to say that we owe one another, in all honesty, the score never falters from 0–0. No good deed would demand payback. Free will offers free agency, no matter how much we try to manipulate variables. They vary for a reason.
Instead of changing them, we could accept that there is more than one way to arrive at an answer. Finding peace in the solution we fought against fills the space caverned by expectation. Every debt I thought someone owed me taught me the power of personal choice.
Peace doesn’t come from getting what you’re owed, but rather realizing the balance sheet served no greater good. Acceptance becomes the equation that resolves debt on both sides.