My mother

is celebrating her birthday today.

And on this day I cannot help but wonder how her life was like when she was my age.

When she was 38, I was 17. She had just gotten back from four years in California with Da, and I was not the same person that she left. I was older, more headstrong, more broken, more lonely, more angry, more unpredictable than ever, and impossible to handle. Most 17 year-olds are. But in her eyes, I am nothing like the rest of that population. She believed I was special.

So she stayed with me, and worked with me, and though it was not easy -- for her as well as for me -- and nothing was perfect, I shed off that grunge-y, angst-y shell and was able to start making peace with who I really am inside.

Now I am 38 myself, and I have not experienced half the pain and difficulties she went through when she was 38. I have it easy, mostly because she saw to it that I won't go through the same difficulties she had, and for that I am grateful.

But as life must have it, I must go through my own purgatories, my own abysses, my own confrontations with the devil, and there are times when I absolutely must do it alone, and I'm glad I got through them. My mother taught me how.

Now life is still not perfect, but I know now that for as long as I stay true to myself, and be respectful of my own core values, then all will be well. Sometimes I forget that, I admit, but I always eventually go back to who I am. I always come home to where I belong.

Happy birthday, Mama Eden.

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