Plan B

Life is all about adjusting to Plan B. We can figure out Plan A all we want, but when unexpected events occur in our lives, we have to take Plan B. Whether we've come up with one or not, it's the alternative route. My mom told me that and she would know better than anyone else about the truth of that statement.

    When I was little, I always associated my mother with beauty and every aspect of it. She always took so much time and effort to make sure she looked presentable to the world. At home, she was like a different person without the big hair, made up face, and fashionably dressed woman that I called my mom. Though in reality, it was all a mask she had put on eagerly to gain approval from anyone else willing enough to pay attention. She's come from some really low places, and yet, she still managed to climb out of them.

    From my early years in elementary school, my mother liked to play dress up with me, easily understandable since I was her oldest child and she had a strong sense of importance attached with beauty. But, being around six or seven years old, I did not like it. My hair was always a mess that had to be painfully brushed through, and my mom liked to poof it up with a large, loud, and colorful bow to go on top. Needless to say, I complained and whined often and my mom just would reply, "We're almost done." every time I did. The sticky and unpleasant smell of hair spray was a regular accompaniment, and I would always cover my face to not breathe it in.

    At one time, I had my first and only dance drill team performance. I was seven and, as an excitable little girl, I did not want to sit down before the performance. But, because it was a dance show, all the girls had to look pretty, which was my mother's territory. That was the first time I ever had makeup put on and I made it a bad experience for the both of us. When my mom tried to put on the once-pretty-but-now-torture-device mascara, I squirmed, cried, and fidgeted every moment that I could. It took much longer than needed to, but instead of my mom yelling at me to stay still, she just kept working and trying her best to get through it. It was kind of admiring, especially since I know now I had to be irritating her, and I'm grateful that she put up with me.

    It was like that for a good part of my childhood, except when I started moving, and places, people, and my knowledge of the world changed as I grew. Another seven years later, and my life was shockingly different. My parents were divorced when I was twelve, my mom was remarried and divorced within a year, and I had moved in with my dad when I was fourteen. My mom, who had nowhere else to go, moved in with her friend and shared a part of the house with her. It was very cramped on my mom's side. There was only a bedroom and a tiny living room, and the hallway to where the bathroom was. That's where we lived every other weekend, my sisters and I. It had its own smell, stale and stuffy, and pet hair covered everything, top to bottom. No matter what anyone could do, you would always feel dirty in that place. Even right after a shower where the bathroom wasn't that clean and neither were the towels, that were also regularly covered with pet hair as well.

    My mother and I were the most disconnected at that time. For the first three months, she didn't have a job and it was hard for all of us. We never really wanted to be there. That was when I really got into using the computer all the time, as a means for escape. Nearly every hour that I could, I would be on that computer, and my mother didn't disagree or anything. She had problems of her own to worry about. Since we all fought all the time because of the lack of personal space, that was what I went to and that's how I started to drift away from my family. Though my mother managed to push through. She found a job at LA Weight Loss that started an entire new cycle for her, and ever since her second divorce, she became closer to God.

    After that, for a while, I didn't appreciate being around her. Every time I visited her, I normally just wanted to be at my dad's house since that's where my bedroom, my friends, and my main life was at. We grew distant from each other, not that we didn't love each other, I just didn't initiate speaking with her very often. Until I made a mistake. A big mistake. That mistake was big enough that when my parents found out about it, they decided I should live with my mother.

    It was hard. I was angry and upset all the time, since my life had been completely and absolutely uprooted. Yet my mother, she knew that she had to handle this delicately. I wasn't allowed to have a cell phone or my car so I had to spend my time with her, and her approach was unconditional love. No matter how angry we got at each other, she would always end with "I know you're mad, but I love you." At first, I didn't like the phrase at all. I was supposed to be angry, and ending the fight with a happy sentence always threw me off. But after time, I accepted it. We grew close to each other, since I really had no one else to go to. She helped me get through the major problems I was facing and I was there when she had problems of her own. She had been remarried again, surprisingly to the same man before, but that's another story. Her approach worked so well that I actually looked forward to spending some time with her and talking to her.

    My mom went through so many hard things that I've only barely managed to understand. I know now how hard she tries and how good of a heart she has because of the transformation both of us have had through our lives. And even though she seems to be only important to me because she's my mother, there's more than that. After working at LA Weight Loss, she started her own little business and helps out many women in their journey to lose weight. She's a great person to go to when you need a boost of encouragement or even if you need some help religiously. She is simply a helping woman. In the end, my mom has had to adjust to Plan B all her life. But Plan B is what has made her life so authentic and has really increased her character. So Plan B is not always what you expect, but it might just be what you need.