An Essay: My Mentor & EnemyMy mother has always been a source of pain and disappointment in my life. Sometimes it is from the affect she has on my world and sometimes it’s because I let her thoughts go through to me and I ruin everything myself- she haunts me. Years of abuse from her, being property of child protective services and then coming back home to a changed woman-- one who was no longer decayed – killed me. I will always be left without that sparkling youth that made me cry in joy and smile over pain because she left me thinking I deserved it all. She has made me want to be better. I need to be better, and from that she may not have given me a lifeline but an anchor that I may just spend my whole life groveling to, trying to climb. She makes me try. / Tammara is a woman of strength; It is a strength I can never touch because she has been on her own her entire life. She clings to people to make things easier for her but it is only out of selfishness. I see her trying to change that sometimes; With my return in her life followed by a move away from the only town (and the only state) she has been in long enough to call it home and my stepfather’s cancer I have watched her grow. It has helped me too. She is stubborn and empty, barren from her six children, none of whom have been enough for her because she has never been enough for herself. She is full of extraordinary talent. The woman is beautiful and not in appearance or even in actions but in ideas. She has always been capable but does not have the faith or confidence or care to push herself… everyone else though, she thrusts. Tammy is a hypocrite and a liar. Most my life she was been a morbidly obese, pasty red-head with long stiff nails that dig in your skin and plain eyes with nothing in them- light would not touch them to reflect hope or happiness. Now she has had surgery and all the fat that hid her is melting. I have turned just as cold skinned as her, I hate the outdoors. She is fifty since December and her hair has faded in color to a more flattering solid brown while her nails have gone brittle and she wears them trimmed. Sometimes I look into her eyes and I see my best friend. My only friend. / My mom had me learn through my mistakes and never my accomplishments. There is always a failure and I had a fiasco on my hands since birth. She believed firmly, when I was young, in punishment over positive reinforcement. I do not think she knew at the time that you can lead by example, and if she did she certainly did not use the technique. When you did something bad you deserved bad done to you, and if you did nothing wrong the reward was to go on without paying the price. There was no way to know what that price was going to be. I always paid in some way.