I had a good friend come up to me the other night in the gym and tell me my blog post made her cry. This poor young woman is a dynamo, but just beats herself up like you can't believe. I see it so clearly, she's a single mother, works around 5 jobs, and just kills herself. I tried to sell her on Visalus, but she sold herself on "if you aren't working as hard as you can - you're wrong"
My mom could bascially be mother Theresa, and I know nothing about Mother Theresa... right now.
My mom grew up in a huge family, and she lost her mother at a young age. My dad always tells me what a wonderful woman grandma was, I wish I could have met her. Losing grandma really killed my mother, she was just like me, she wanted to do anything to please her parents, and she taught me that as well. Mom was raised in a huge family, where Dad always did his best, and it was wrong to complain. This was passed down to me, to the point where I've had pancreatitis, a condition they put people on Morphine for, and after it set in, I rolled through it for about a month, puking and not being able to sleep for the pain, and I never said anything until I started puking blood... My bad.
Mom married when she was 19 to my father, and to this day, she always tells me how much fun Dad was, and she's never had more fun with anyone. Of course she did, my Dad is a leader and a lover, a really family,man. She started in Dentistry, then eventually moved into being the vice president of a 10 million dollar company. Mom was a worker, who loved her family, and if any of the guys complained she was on top of that right away.
In her spare time, she was a founding member of the youth underground? I can't remember the name. But, basically, a young girl was killed in our hometown, so my mom and a Dr, teacher, police officer and a few others go together to set it up. It was a place where young kids could go to hang out. i spent a lot of time there when I was young. They had this giant club house for all these kids, tv, video games, kitchen, everything, and volunteers made sure kids didn't get into trouble.
There was my mom, hanging out with all the thugs of my hometown, letting them bum a smoke, and just listening to them while they chatted away. My mother is described as the sweetest woman you'll ever meet, and just has a need to please. It's hilarious looking back, but she did so much for those kids.
Don't get me wrong, my mother is all woman, and all mother, but in her spare time from being a leader in a huge metal fabrication plant, she built houses, and was arm to arm, shoulder to shoulder with a bunch of grungy old men, and they all loved her. She would be shoulder to shoulder with all the guys in the plant, and they just loved her.
My mother has organized the building of around 30 houses from the foundation up, she is way way more handier than me, and a great gift for me my mother is either some sort of tool, or a gift card to a hardware store.
Speaking of gifts, it's impossible to shop for that woman, I've seen her bonus cheques in good years, it was around $350k... she took that money, put it in the bank, then shopped at the local dollar store for groceries and went to Giant Tiger for clothes. No joke. It's not that she's cheap, it's that she just doesn't care about the money, sincerely, money is something she needs, she's set herself up to retire, and she never will, I have to fight her every year to buy her snow plowing in the winter when I have the cash, it's that my mother is only concerned with 1 thing. The love of her family. That's it that's all. She is a mother right to her toe nails.
She always asks me if I'd move home, I'm 27 and she'd have me in there in a second, cooking and cleaning for me and generally making me more uncomfortable with love I never feel like I've earned, from a woman I feel like I'll never be able to live up to.
That was the big part of my parents divorce. My mother is a small business owner, who desperately loves her family and friends, my father is an entrepeneur, who is a family,man. When things got tough, my dads soul died with the business, when things got tough, my mother didn't care, she shops at the fucking dollar store, money means nothing to her as it means nothing to me, or my father. But she couldn't understand the ownership my father felt, every single guy in that plant was an entitled sack of shit, who whined and complained and dumped it on my mother all the time because they were too chicken shit to go to my father with their concerns. I understand because I was like that too. I was that entitled piece of shit.
When the layoffs started, the guys would be all over my mother, trying to get them to see their side, hoping they wouldn't get laid off, just dumping dumping dumping... on my mother? that's torture for that woman, her hearts beats for her children, and those men were her children. She began to resent my father, as we all did at the time, and Dad got lonely.
It's so lonely being the leader, you won't believe it until you are it... and when you take accountability for every single person underneath you, and become their mistakes so they don't ever have to feel the way you feel, you'll understand... be careful, if you think this is you, there's a good chance you aren't the leader... if you don't think this is you, there's a 10% chance you're the leader... and that's who the real leaders are. You can have that title, and still not be the leader, trust me.
Dad did some dumb shit, and when your whole world hates you, yeah, you do some dumb shit. I've been in his shoes, his exact same shoes, when your partner doesn't understand your pain, because they sincerely can't... you go somewhere else for the love you need. I spent 6 months in couples counselling to learn this, and it wasn't until a few years later I understood. It wasn't until i made my fahters mistakes did I learn.
The thing is, my parents divorce is the best thing that's ever happened to either of them.
My mom is free to find the guy she can share the rest of her life with, and my mother is so beautful, as soon as men found out she was single our phone was ringing day and night. I was on a canoe trip and a guy who had done work for my mom found out about the recent divorce, and his head whipped around, and he exclaimed "your parents are divorced?!!?" he realized what he did, and gave his condolences immediately after, but added to say hi for him to mom.... they dated for a few months.
I had a conversation with my good friend Paul, I met him December 2nd, I asked him for help finding someone, and he invited me into his home, and we spent about an hour together talking about love and marriage. He explained it to me like this, he had a huge family, worked 3 jobs for them and was married, but told his wife openly she was not his true love. He wanted to live, learn and pass it on, then after that he felt he could find his true love. I asked him about it, and why he wasn't trying to find her right now, and he said, God would let him know when he was ready for it, but until then, he loved his family and he was going to provide for them. I'd known Paul for about an hour, and he was like an angel, he invited me into his home, 5 minutes after he met me, and I left with a copy of the bible he gave to me, and had a picture of jesus on his wall in his tiny cramped office.
That's another way i forgave my mother and father for ending their marriage. They were married at 19, they were the only people they'd ever been together with, they built an amazing family, then a truly amazing business with a family attached to it. They lived, learned and passed it on, then it was time to find their true loves. My dad found his earlier than my mother, but mom has now lived the life of a 20 year old in the early 2000's, she's been on piles of dates, loved lost love, and just lived the way she needed to. My mother is an amazing woman.
This is one of the reasons I despise weak women. Please don't get me wrong, I love women, I love femininity, I love mothers... but I hate when women try to embrace weakness. Women bring life into the world, that takes such a strength that men can't understand... when women give their power away as something they don't want or need.. I despise it, not them, i despise that standard in our society.
I think about Matt Britt, and the thing is Matt Britt isn't Matt without Mia St-Aubin. I'd heard all about her before I met her, everyone told me how beautiful she was, how lovely she was, they never realized they were describing her as their own mothers, she's amazing. beside every strong man, is their other half, they don't make up for their weaknesses, they compliment their strengths, and the man loves her enough to let her know his own weaknesses, and the woman will believe in him enough to whisper in his ear to calm down when he needs to hear it, and she's strong enough and brave enough to do it.
Please, don't get me wrong, I talk about man and woman, but it can be man to man, woman to woman, I just don't care about that stuff, that's why there are buffets, some people like steak, some people like chicken, it's all food.
I think of another mother I know with no children of her own, who is so passionate about family she created one out of thin air. She lost her mother the way mine did, but I feel a connection to her that not many people will be able to understand. When you lose a family member to schizophrenia, you might understand, the person you loved is gone, and there's just a shell left... you pray they'll come back to you, but it's out of your hands. It tears you apart like you can't believe. I blamed myself over and over, I blamed myself for not being a good enough big brother, for not being Kevin Cancian whose brother is his best friend, and is a man I couldn't be. It took giving myself schizophrenia to understand, it wasn't ever in my hands, but it was all in my hands. Being nagative and positive isn't enough, you have to be the balance between the two, the balance saved my life. I pray this mother can learn to forigve herself, but I don't know, and I'm scared for her, but it's not my place to step in, Matt Britt taught me that lesson HARD, but I learned it. The greatest harm can come from the best of intentions... I've lived that one a few times before I could learn it, but Matt put his foot down like a good father, and trusted me to learn why he did so. Thank you Matt.
I think about my former partner Katrina, she was my mother, they get along like peas in a pot. They have that same need to please everyone, and it never goes away, that's why I trust her always, she's always going to love you, and she will never ever stop. She just doesn't care. The thing that amazes me about Katrina, is her ability to grow and keep on growing, I saw her in her first year of business, fish in water making connections with people, but no idea how to follow through. That's when i met her, she sold everything and anything, and I stepped in and handled the customers and painters, and ran the rest.
This year, we went solo, and ran into all the problems we always do when we don't work together, she had customer and painter problems, I had sales problems... but we killed ourselves to bring our weaknesses up, and now we're complete without each other, and can move on to new heights.
To all the women out there, I love you all, I love the strength I see in you, and thank you.
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