My motivation, my memories...

This week's blog post topic is focused on one of Danielle LaPorte's burning questions, "What is chronic, repetitive, or inflamed in your life?" Click here to see a short YouTube video where LaPorte discusses the issue.

Initially, this topic had me outright stumped. I immediately thought of how my current research is giving me problems. As science is expected to do. I have made a compound, but cannot prove what I made is what I need. Anyway.... That doesn't really get to the heart of the matter that LaPorte is questioning.

So, I dove a little deeper in my thoughts and it dawned on me that I do have something "chronic or inflamed" in my life. I have simply become numb to it. The topic I am about to discuss is very personal to me, and I do not fully know how to explain it all, but I will try my best.

My mother passed away on September 10th, 2011. She had yet to have her 48th birthday and she left me 6 days before my own birthday. My mother suffered from several health problems through my senior year of high school, but I wasn't ready to let go of her just yet. She always said that she just had to get me to college and know that I was safe and happy there. And this is what happened. I had just got settled into CMU.

Somehow, my world didn't fall to pieces. No one thinks about what it is like to lose a loved one so close. I had already lost my father during my freshman year of high school, but this was much harder. I don't think I ever fully dealt with my feelings. I went home for the service and then came back to school as soon as I could and focused on catching up. I used school as a distraction from my loss and the pain I felt. Although I am happy that my mom is no longer suffering, I feel a little lost without her. Sometimes I wonder if the realization will ever hit me hard that she is gone. There are days that I really long to talk to her.

My mom was one of those "cool" moms who was everyone's mom. She raised me to be the person I am now and encouraged my scholastic learning. I use her memory as my driving force and motivation to do the best that I can do.  

I do not feel the need to have a solution to what's chronic in my life. I utilize it to its full potential and especially knowing that my mother and father would be proud of where I am in life now. As Rose Kennedy once said, "“It has been said, ‘time heals all wounds.’  I do not agree.  The wounds remain. In time, the mind, protecting its sanity, covers them with scar tissue and the pain lessens.  But it is never gone.”