I've been thinking about how you can't really fix your mom.
You can explain things to her, tell her when something hurt you, and support her as much as you're willing to. But at some point, you have to accept that she's her own person.
She had a mother before she became yours. She had her own childhood, her own experiences, and her own things to carry. And sometimes, I think she is just trying to do things differently from what she experienced herself.
But even then, she might make choices that hurt you.
Maybe she chose something because she thought it was better for you, but in doing so, she deprioritized something else that mattered to you. And you can still be hurt by that.
I think both things can be true.
She can have tried her best, and you can still have been hurt by the result.
And sometimes when your mom says something hurtful or makes a choice you don't understand, it isn't really about you. It's about what she knows, what she's experienced, what she's afraid of, and what she thinks is the right thing to do.
That doesn't mean you have to pretend it didn't hurt.
But maybe you don't always have to take it personally either.
You can't fix her. You can understand her, love her, and support her as much as you can. But you don't have to carry the responsibility of undoing everything she went through.
Maybe forgiveness is partly accepting that she was just trying to be a mother with what she had.
Sometimes she got it right. Sometimes she didn't.
And sometimes, even when she was trying to do better, she still got it wrong.
But that doesn't necessarily mean she didn't love you.
Sometimes, it really isn't about you.
And I wonder...
What does she think about her mother?
And what did her mother think about her mother?
And her mother before that?
How many of the things we struggle with today started generations before us?
Maybe we're all just trying to do a little better with what was handed down to us.