I thought I knew pretty much everything I needed to know about my mom. I knew she was a wild child growing up, rebelling against any type of authority. She was just being young and living her life. No harm, no foul. I used to hold her on such a high pedestal, thought she could do no wrong. I never knew perfection wasn't real. I never knew that my mom lived life so close to the edge, sometimes she missed a step and would dangle from it, so close to letting go. 

My mom was an addict in her young days. It was way before I was born or even thought of (I wasn't even really thought of, I was not purposely made, but that's a whole other story). I knew of her days and nights of being wasted on alcohol and finding a guy to spend the night with. I knew she had taken drugs before, but it was never a problem, or so she told me. I was told the truth of her story with drugs, her story where she lived life too close to the edge. She can never know that I know, at least not for a long time.

My mom overdosed twice. She almost died twice. She was poisoning herself all the time, and it almost killed her, yet she kept going. She did cocaine, crank, and meth. You wouldn't know it looking at her now. I didn't even know. A couple years ago, she told me that she had done hard drugs, but it was just a fun thing she did at parties. She may even believe that she wasn't addicted. She may have blocked a lot out of her memory to cope, which is understandable. If that happened to me, I would probably deny it as well just to make things easier for me. 

It is hard to fathom this version of my mom. I don't necessarily understand what drove her to do these things. I don't get why she felt willing to do anything to get these drugs, but tells me that drugs were not a major problem in her life. I don't know why she felt that even after these drugs almost killed her twice, she still decided to disappear and worry my grandparents. Did she think she was invincible? Sure, the drugs almost killed her, but the key word for her was "almost." She thought that she could keep overdosing and she would still be okay. But you know what they say: Third time's a charm. 

My sister (different moms, but our moms were close at this time) remembers not being able to see her a lot at this time. She remembers her family visiting my grandparents only to find out my mom had disappeared and my grandparents didn't whether she was alive or not. She remembers her mom going out to find her, which she did, and basically dragged her out of whoever's house she was at, telling her to "never scare her parents like that ever again." And she didn't. She cleaned up. She was still a wild child, but drugs were never touched by her again. It took her a while to clean up, but she got it. My sister remembers not being able to see her every time she backslided since she was very young. She remembers going to the store where my mom worked and noticing, even for a little kid, that something was not right about her. My mom wasn't built to be skinny, but she looked so frail and thin at this time, especially for her body type. She looked deathly ill, bags under her eyes, skin as pale as snow. 

I'm proud of the woman my mom has become. She has really made something of herself now. We haven't always been financially stable, and she even made a dumb choice to be with a man who was so mentally abusive on us, but if there is one thing I have learned from her, it is how to bounce back after life knocks you off your feet. I think I am one of the few lucky kids who never had to deal with the repercussions of a parent who was an addict. The addict version of my mom is a complete stranger to me. I never knew her. Part of me wishes I do, just so I could give her a hug and tell her everything is going to be okay. Because that is the truth

We don't know our parents. We will never completely know them. I learn new things about her a lot. I know plenty of what he has been through, but I clearly have so much more to learn. 

We don't know our parents, and that's okay, because they may never really know us either.