15810
Why is this number significant? Because it means I have officially outlived my mother.
But wait?!? Isn’t your mother still alive? You talk about her all the time!
By every definition of “mother” that actually matters, yes, my mom is alive and well (well… mostly; she’s been dealing with me for over four decades, so someone please send her an award or a vacation). But when we zoom in on the dictionary definition of “the person who physically expelled me into the world,” then no. That mother, my biological one, is very much not alive.
Over two decades ago, she removed herself from the land of the living. And over the last several years, and especially this last one, I’ve found myself thinking about the moment I would surpass her time on Earth.
15,810 days.
Here we are.
Like many mothers, though let’s be honest, not the ones you see on greeting cards, mine was not exactly equipped when I arrived. A combination of age, poor life choices, abuse toward her stepson (my brother), and the loss of a second baby (which likely torpedoed an already shaky mental state with postpartum) all culminated in her noping out of motherhood entirely.
She quite literally dropped me on a doorstep—no cute wicker basket, no ribbon—and rode off into the proverbial drug-laden sunset with a new boyfriend. Thankfully, my father ended up with custody. (This is its own side quest: picture a David-vs-Goliath battle where David is a single biker-dude dad in the 80s and Goliath is… well, the system paired with money and lots of it. My dad still won.)
Then, because narcissists love a good sequel, she decided to try to alter my trajectory. There were a few legal custodial visits (a few didn’t go well, courtesy of that aforementioned drug-laden sunset, and ended with some kicked-in doors), plus a couple attempts at straight-up kidnapping. None stuck. None succeeded. Over the next few years she’d occasionally pop up with bizarre Christmas antics or New Year’s sleepover theatrics that bordered on manic. Fortunately, her busy schedule of Bad Life Decisions plus the advantage of living several states away meant the chaos she caused was mostly contained to her own orbit.
At 10, she popped back up again, armed this time with a new baby, my sister, conceived in a halfway house after another baby (born in jail) was given up for adoption and arrived missing a chunk of her thigh thanks to one of her benders. Add in exciting Disney trips and shiny false promises, and honestly, it should have worked given my age.
For several years, I saw her more than I ever had. School breaks, holidays, sister-time. I always returned home mostly intact, but the signs were there. My brain just filed them away for future retrieval like a very morbid, very practical squirrel.
At 16, the perfect storm hit. Teenage hormones plus her well-rehearsed narcissistic manipulations nearly sent my trajectory into the sun. She dangled support for a “forbidden love,” trashed my family, waved more exciting trips and false promises in front of me, and pulled every manipulation from her bag of tricks.
I was sucked into her world, which ended up being serendipitous because my baby sister’s father had been hurt and she needed a consistent caregiver. So there I was, tumbling like Alice down the rabbit hole: caregiving for a child not biologically mine, working full time while still in high school (ironically, probably the thing that saved me… shout-out to that crew), multiple police and ambulance calls for her, nearly dying in a car with her at the wheel, watching her manipulate her way out of a mandated 72-hour M1 hold, and even being encouraged to sneak drugs to her while she was hospitalized.
The rabbit hole was deep, my friends.
Meanwhile, my family missed every milestone: my first car purchase, first promotions, drama performances in black box theatre, and my high school graduation (skipped out on prom); things they’d instilled in me as vital my whole life.
By 17, I was planning my escape. Unlike Alice, I wasn’t waking up from Wonderland—I had been surrounded by the Caterpillar, the Queen of Hearts, and was constantly dodging the Jabberwocky. Thankfully, I also had a few Mad Hatters, Cheshire Cats, and White Rabbits who helped me figure out it was time to claw my way to the riverbank. I reached out to my dad, mom, and grandma and set up the escape plan. Only in the final moments did she (the Jabberwocky herself) realize what was happening and try one more grand gesture of manipulation. But it was too late.
For the next four years, she only managed brief interruptions in my life, just one where I actually saw her in person, before watching her melt (literally, not metaphorically) in her coffin. Thank {insert deity or lack thereof} that social media and smartphones didn’t exist yet, because that would have been a whole new circle of Dante’s Hell. By then, my trajectory was my own again. She had rocked it off course for a while, but she never set it.
That path, the real one, was determined by me, influenced by my dad, grandmother, mother, and brother, along with a handful of relatives on her side who were far more stable than she ever was. So when people claim genetics or background are the determining factors (including the doctors who have been side-eyeing me for decades when I explain the mental health and addiction histories in my immediate lineage), I vehemently disagree. And for those who love to chant “blood is thicker,” you can kindly fuck off. If the blood is poisonous, you not only have permission to cut it out—you have a survival obligation.
When Jeanette McCurdy wrote I’m Glad My Mom Died, I felt that sentiment in my soul, but for reasons that could fill an entirely different book… likely one filed under “Dark Humor / Trauma Processing / Please Don’t Let My Therapist Read This.”
But back to the point.
As I approached that oddly momentous number, 15,810, I kept circling the same thought: I cannot fathom how someone could throw away their entire life. Not just the literal end of it, though that’s tragic enough, but everything they abandon along the way: the ups and downs (the plot twists no one gives you a content warning for), the love you find, lose, reclaim, or stubbornly refuse to let go of, the families (chosen, assigned, and occasionally escaped) who teach you lessons whether you wanted them or not, and wandering off your path only to realize there’s an entire world beyond the one you started in.
Life is meant for living. And not in the glossy, motivational-poster way—no, truly living. Feeling—actually feeling, not that emotionally dehydrated “I’m fine” routine. Experiencing—deep in the bones, and sometimes in the absolute chaos of “I was not prepared for that” kind of experiencing. You are not the sum total of your genetics, nor are you beholden to whatever stories you’ve sold yourself about why your life must be this way or that. Your trajectory is yours to take hold of, even when it wobbles like a shopping cart with one rogue wheel, and even when the wobble was caused by someone else crashing their disaster into your lane.
Because no matter the Queens, Cards, Caterpillars, or full-blown Jabberwockys that stomp onto your path, you, dear Alice, are the one who chooses whether to claw your way back to the riverbank. And you don’t have to do it alone. Find your Mad Hatters, the delightfully chaotic, well-intentioned weirdos who show up with advice, snacks, or both. Find your White Rabbits, who remind you there’s still time even when you’re convinced you’ve missed every last opportunity. And definitely keep a Cheshire Cat or two around, the ones who grin supportively, drop one-liners of accidental wisdom, and vanish before you can rope them into heavy lifting.
You are not, and never have been, defined by the tumble down the rabbit hole.
You are a product of the choices you make on the climb back up; the grit, the humor, the stubbornness, and the very specific brand of resilience that comes from surviving things you wouldn’t wish on your worst enemy (or maybe you would… depends on the day). And let’s be honest: clawing your way out of a metaphorical hole absolutely counts as exercise, so you can check “wellness” off your list for the day.
So here’s to making the most of another 15,810 days, hell, maybe even a few bonus rounds, and to spending the majority of them outside the rabbit hole, firmly on solid ground. Living. Loving. Feeling. Experiencing. And maybe even laughing at the absurdity of how wild the journey has been so far.
Because in the end, you’re not defined by the fall.
You’re the product of the climb.
And what a climb it’s been.
