Anonymous

While I may not get flowers on Mother’s Day, I live with the daily responsibilities that go along with the adulting of parenthood as a full-time caregiver.

What do you do when you have no choice on how you get to work?

It was all going well . . . until the SWAT team arrived.

I’ll be the first to admit that a large part of my twenties was spent in a euphoric haze brought on by fairly regular pot smoking. I loved the stuff — and it certainly loved me. I don't feel I ever had a “problem” with it, but I did feel a strong pull to have it in my life.

That’s part of the problem, I think. I keep waiting for my sexual partners to figure out how to bring me to orgasm.

Over those five years, I volunteered on hot summer days and rainy mornings. I stood in snow, wearing warm layers and fleece mittens. I volunteered beside women and men, many of them young, like me, but some older and wiser and living out a lifetime of experience on those sidewalks.

When I left the hospital the night that he was admitted, I sat in the parking lot gasping with big ugly sobs and looking for someone to blame — beginning with myself. I'm his mother, and I'm the only consistent parent he's ever had. As I finally made my way home, with tears streaming down my face and my mouth open in a silent scream of pain, all I could ask myself was "what have I done?" How could I have allowed my son to be hurt so deeply, and in so many ways?

Unlike before, pleasuring myself isn’t a daily or weekly thing. But I'm also not ashamed anymore. As an adult woman, I have granted myself full permission.

Despite our fear of getting caught, the richness of experience, the beauty of the land, and the generosity of the Cuban people made the risk more than worthwhile.

Like too many others out there, we have a father who gave us some of his genes and not a whole lot more. Specifically, my father is an alcoholic — has been for the entirety of his adult life.