where does it go?

I am ashamed to admit that I used to resent my mother for choosing to take care of me. I wanted her to be more, not because I thought there was more to life than parenthood, but because I thought parenthood wasn’t enough, though now I recognize that motherhood is more than enough even though there is still more to life. My anger with her has since transformed into anger for her—anger that she never got to live in Miami, anger that she was in graduate school at a time when marriage came first and a woman’s degree came last, anger that she spent three decades pouring everything she had into a home that my father destroyed in two years without remorse. I am angry because she is already everything yet she could have had more, and I am angry because every time she pushes me towards my dreams I wonder how many times she was pulled back from hers. She is the strongest person I know because, even after everything, her love remains greater than her regret.

I am ashamed to admit that I redirected my resentment to my older brother, for holding a level of contempt I couldn’t make sense of until the day I realized it was grief. By not knowing how to raise a daughter, my father made me a friend, but in his familiarity he showed my brother glimpses of the violence his own fathers bestowed upon him and although it taught my brother to be gentle I know he could have learned without it. His love overpowered his pain until he was shown that self-esteem should be greater than loyalty, and even then he stayed protective, allowing me my castle until I was ready to realize just how fragile glass is.

I am ashamed because, while my mother was choosing me, I was battling her, and while my brother was shielding me, I was judging him, and in my resentment I failed to recognize the root of it, a distraction that continues to allow my father to escape the consequences because I am tired of suffering.