It hit me like a ton of bricks, that my oldest will be leaving for college soon (she will make her announcement later).

I (and when I say me, I am not talking as a single mom, she has a dad and I am not raising her alone and we have a strong support system as well) but I am sending a kid to college.

I was the first in my family in 20 years to graduate high school. I got accepted into college but didn't go until much later in life and by then that was a community college and some business school.

My daughter gave me a hug, thanking me for just helping and supporting her with this upcoming transition and I responded that that is what I am supposed to do. After she left is when I cried. I start reflecting, that while yes, this is what I am supposed to do but more so it was what I was willing to do, deciding to do because it was not done for me with my mom, we didn't even have one conversation about my after school plans. I did know I better had kept working and when I did ask about her helping me with tuition, I got cussed out.

Earlier today, I cried for 2 reasons. I cried for my younger self, not because I was still bothered by what happened but because I never got a chance to feel my feelings. I needed support, guidance. It was not normal to not have a conversation about college. My younger self had to accept what I was given (or not given) and keep it moving. I held it in, along with so much other stuff. Feeling wasn't an option.

But I also cried because as a mother, a mother in healing who is more aware of, willing to heal my mistakes than my mom, I still made many mistakes because I am still healing, so as I learned and grew my oldest is growing too and now she leaving. Did I show her right, as a mother and a woman? I need a little more time to come into my own to make sure she comes into her own. But when she hugged me for something I felt was my duty, I realized that alone was a curse, a pain I had broken.

I didn't get it perfect, but I got a lot right. My oldest will be college-bound soon and I, a daughter of an abusive mother with no model on how to be a mom, got some shit right (and not just because she is going to college because we talked about her going to trade school or even traveling for experience) but because I changed how things were done to me and not repeated it to my daughter as I easily could have. She will be the first in my family (on my mom's side) to go to an out of state college and go to a major university.

So this mother's Day, I am thankful. I doubt myself ALLLLL the time. Sometimes I think I am fake when I talk about UnMotherFuckYourSelf and I am struggling being a mother or I messed up in some way. Mothering is definitely hard.

Long as I stay willing and as long as I continue to heal, I can only become a better mother to my oldest and to my 14 and 9-year-old.

But most of all, the more I can be a better me because I want to reap the benefits of my healing and with all that I have been through, I deserve that.

A very reflective Mother's Day for me. One of healing the old and definitely one of celebrating the new.