For all my luvs who have loved someone battling addiction. I know that pain too well . My birth mom was my first heart break. Addiction doesn’t love back. It doesn’t show up to parent-teacher conferences. It doesn’t remember birthdays. It doesn’t say, “I’m proud of you,” when you’re standing on a stage it never helped you reach. So I became everything she wasn’t. Nurturing. Present. Loving. But even now… there are moments. In the quiet. While I have mother to call ( thank God for grandmas ) I wish I had a safe place in my birth mom. The kind to cry to instead of crying because of. And yet, I go on. Not because she built me strong— but because I built myself… out of the pieces she never picked up. I’m still learning to forgive her. To grieve her. To release the fantasy of who I needed her to be. Because I finally understand: I may never get the mother I wanted. But I will always be the woman I needed. And maybe… that’s the real legacy.