Author: Rockstar

When I Look Back

Healing begins when we stop pretending we weren’t hurting.

Looking back, my family always noticed who I brought around. I never even took a breath, just moved from one to the next.

Why, though?

I’ve moved physically. But mentally, part of me is still in 1998, in Milwaukee. I haven’t known how to be anything else. In some ways, I’m still that girl.

There are names I don’t even remember now. And choices I made, some with my child nearby, that still sting to think about. I went to Planned Parenthood for the services they offered. And still, I don’t know how I made it through. I don’t know how I made it.

I’ve spent most of my life without emotional attachment. I wasn’t taught about emotions. You were either angry or not.

I don’t have memories of joy with my mother when I was young. We weren’t that kind of family. I used to say that as a preteen. And now, I have a grandchild that has said it too. That pattern breaks my heart.

But with my two youngest, I knew I didn’t want them to feel what I felt as a child. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing with my first. But when I had a second chance, raising them on my own, I did everything I could.

Roller skating. Ice skating. Farms. Zoos. Musicals. Theatres. Cars to see family. Trains to visit friends. Buses to Selma. Planes to see the world. Farmers markets. Tote bags. Stickers. Family meals. Board games. Church. Service.

Everything I wanted as a child, with a mama, I tried to give them.

Motherhood has been my greatest accomplishment. It’s how I gave back to the world that cradled me when I needed it most.

Now I try to talk with my grandchildren. This is the age when you need your mama. Preteen years. The in-between.

Our children grow up right in front of our eyes, and we’ll miss it if we’re not careful.

I want them to get back to having moments. Real ones. The kind you remember when everything else fades.

If this resonates with you, take a moment today to reflect on your own “why.”

Why you keep going. Why you give what you didn’t receive. Why healing matters, even when it’s hard.

And if there’s a child in your life, yours or someone else’s, find a small way to make a moment with them.

A laugh. A meal. A memory.

Because sometimes, it’s the quiet, intentional love that breaks the cycle.

Emotional Living, Not Factual Living

I’ve spent much of my life living by emotions, not facts.

Sometimes I think I’ve only understood the world through scenes from a movie. Real connection? I couldn’t tell you much about that, not from firsthand experience. I’ve never really bonded deeply, not in the way that feels grounding.

But in workspaces and parenting spaces, I became who I am. That’s where I found my rhythm, even when I didn’t know I was dancing. That’s where I found women, real women, who taught me what it meant to be a mother.

From 2008 on, Cindy, Trina, Karen, Dorothy, Sara, and Chris came into my life. We were single mothers raising daughters. That was our connection. We leaned on each other. We grew our children together while still growing ourselves.

Those women didn’t just show me motherhood, they walked it out in front of me, and I took notes with my life.

I tried different paths among them. I was always trying to find myself.

But I wasn’t really focused on me. I was focused on my daughters, making sure they made it further than I ever did.

From 2008 to 2012, I was “adulting” the best way I knew how.

I had community.

Mardi Gras balls. Museums. Zoos. Family moments. Parades. Church outings. Sleepovers.

I had a life.

Cyndi, now, feels like what Trina was to me for the past 40 plus years, familiar presence. A tether.

She has her circle of friends, and while I’m not always in that number, I’ve learned to be okay with that.

I’ve always struggled.

Could people could see something I couldn’t, that I wasn’t really pushing myself to grow. I never asked.

I figure that’s why it was easy for folks to throw me away. I carried so much, too much.

There were times that I was lost in the fog of it all.

And here I am, feeling stuck.

I’ve got to get out.

I whisper it every day:

Dear Lord, let me be not only awake… but aware.

Because for so long it was me and my girls.

Then me and Matthew.

Now… I just want it to be me.

It’s never really been just me.

But I want that now.

Dear Lord, guide me.

While I’m here, the truth is, I’m not really into books. Much of anything, really. I do things just to be doing something.

To seem relevant. To feel like I belong somewhere. I want to belong.

Sometimes I buy books just to say I have them. There’s one playing in my ear right now, something about reconstruction.

It’s like my little girl with her jumbo puzzle book for plane rides. Or my other little girl already prepared with her book before takeoff.

Is that what they got from me.

Hmph. I’m just now seeing that.

This is what emotional living looks like.

Not factual living.

But I’m learning.

I’m waking up.

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Just Us: A Letter to My Daughters

There’s something sacred about the bond formed in quiet houses—when it’s just a mother and her children learning how to survive, how to grow, how to be a family without a blueprint.

My youngest two daughters didn’t grow up with big family dinners or holidays filled with relatives from both sides. Their dad, Anthony, wasn’t a Triplett by birth, nor by adoption. And as for me, I have never known my paternal side. So, what we built together didn’t come from tradition. It came from strength. From grit. From love that didn’t need a last name to be real.

They came home to me.

That was the constant. That was the warmth. That was the echo in the hallway, the steady presence after school, the one who held the line even when everything else felt uncertain. I can’t give them stories about family reunions or elders passing down heirlooms. But I can say this:

They were raised in the presence of a strong woman, and they became strong women, too.

I believe they learned how to keep going when things fall apart. I believe they understand loyalty, even when it’s hard. I believe they carry grace and grit in equal measure, not because they were surrounded by it, but because they watched it show up in everyday ways. In me.

I hope when they think of home, they remember my hands, busy, tired, but always reaching for them. I hope they know I did my best, even when my best was barely enough. I hope they feel pride in what we built from nothing.

To my girls, especially my youngest two:

We were just us. And we were more than enough.

With love, always,

Mom

Breaking the Cycle: What I Thought Was Love, Was Survival

For much of my life, I mistook endurance for strength and acts of service for love. I didn’t grow up knowing what healthy looked like, so I learned to accept pain, imbalance, and emotional labor as the cost of being in relationship. But what I’ve come to realize is this: love should not leave you depleted.

I spent years in partnerships where rest was one-sided. Where I worked multiple jobs, carried the emotional and financial weight of the day, and still came home to someone announcing they were “off to take a nap.” As if I didn’t need one too.

There was a time I thought cooking daily meals, showing up in routines, and simply staying put was enough to define love. But love isn’t duty. It isn’t simply doing the same thing over and over again. And it surely isn’t one person doing the heavy lifting while the other calls it “support.”

That wasn’t love. That was survival – dressed up as loyalty, normalized through generations, and rooted in unhealed wounds.

But I’ve grown tired of mistaking dysfunction for familiarity. I’ve decided to break the cycle.

I no longer crave partnership for the sake of not being alone. I’m not interested in proving my worth through exhaustion. I’m not impressed by performative gestures that lack emotional presence.

What I want is peace.

Peace that doesn’t require performance.

Rest that doesn’t come with guilt.

Presence that doesn’t cost me my self-worth.

This is my new tradition – and I will not apologize for choosing it.

If you’re reading this and it resonates, you’re not alone. Peace is possible—and you’re worthy of it.

From Sticker to Summit: A Mother’s Promise Fulfilled

A few years back, I picked up a sticker of the Three Sisters mountain range, three majestic peaks nestled in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains, I didn’t know much about them at the time, but something about their name spoke to me. I stuck that sticker on my car, and made a wish: “I want to see them up close by the time I’m 55.”

What I didn’t say out loud then, but knew in my heart, was that those peaks reminded me of my own three daughters. Each one strong, different, rising in her own way. The Three Sisters became a symbol of hope, strength, and growth; not just theirs, but mine too.

Life has not always been easy. We’ve faced valleys, storms, and long stretches of where the path forward wasn’t clear. However, those mountains reminded me to hold on. Strength often takes shape slowly.

This weekend, I stood before those mountains, nearing 55 and full of feelings that I didn’t expect. Gratitude. Healing. Pride. A sense that even the quietest promises we make to ourselves matter.

Sometimes we plant seeds in silence and watch them bloom years later. Sometimes a sticker becomes a vision. Sometimes a mother, worn from the climb, stands tall and sees her daughters reflected in the horizon.

The Three Sisters. My girls. My journey. One promise fulfilled. Onward.

A Life’s Work

I used to wonder what my hobbies were, what I loved doing for me. Then one day, it hit me: My passion project, my constant devotion since my early 20s.. was raising my children.

Through sleepless night, scraped knees, school meetings, and whispered prayers, I showed up. They were my canvas, my legacy, my rhythm. The seasons passed, and I poured myself into motherhood like it was both art and survival.

Now, as they’ve stretched into their own lives, I find myself standing in the quiet, asking Who am I when I’m not needed in the same way? What do I like, when I’m not loving them through a thousand small things?

It’s a beautiful ache. Because in giving so much, I realize now it’s time to return to myself, not to erase who I was, but to remember who I’ve always been beneath the giving.

*Were you raised by someone who had hobbies?

What hobbies, if any, did you have when you raised your child(ren)?

For the woman I was, am, and becoming.

At DaughterMotherMe.com, I share my lived journey of survival, motherhood, and self-reclamation to inspire healing and truth-telling. I hold space for women navigating loss, estrangement, and reinvention — reminding them they are not alone, and that it’s never too late to choose themselves.

An evening with fresh lavender and a (non alcoholic) beverage.