On the Synchronicity of Motherhood, Wagers Lost, and Unlikely Blessings

A Story of Forgiveness

Today I turn 54. My kids think I’m old, but on the inside, I’ve just lived to age 18 three times. A part of me is stuck there, forever 18.

A thing I have learned about trauma is that it traps a piece of you in its moment. Other parts of you are free to grow up, but not the one that holds all the heavy beliefs surrounding that horrible thing that happened to you. With the passage of enough time, it is almost possible to forget the never-aging part of you stuck in the deep recesses of your psyche.

I have one of those parts. I call her the Girl I Used to Be, and she seems to me like a character I read about in a book once. The details of her story are fuzzy, but I remember that she — unlike me — had a mom. My mother died thirty-six years ago. It is long past time to help the Girl finally release her burden and grow into the woman her mother would surely have wanted her to be.

The wager

When I was 11, my mom and I made a smoking bet. I committed our wager to writing, even going so far as getting a witness to sign the document. Perhaps that was the first indication I would grow up to become a lawyer.

After my parents’ divorce, my mom resumed smoking. I hated it and told her so. She teased back that I would probably smoke by the time I was 18. I was absolutely sure I would not.