Growing up, I used to think my mom, Norma Jean, failed me in a hundred different ways. And I suppose, in some relatively minor ways, maybe she did.

We all have our scars, and parenting is messy work.

I’ve spent a lot of my life looking at the wreckage of my own history, trying to figure out where the train jumped the tracks. But recently, a realization hit me that completely shattered how I see it all—and to be honest, it brought me to tears.

My mother didn't give me a grand philosophy of life.

She gave me tools.

Cooking. Gardening. Making something out of whatever is actually available in front of you. Taking care of things. Knowing how to produce something useful with your own two hands.

For a long time, I didn't realize what I was carrying. When my life completely imploded—when I lost everything else and ended up on the streets, surviving in the absolute margins—those weren't the things I thought mattered.

But when I finally started clawing my way back, long before I had any kind of "success" or stability, I found myself instinctively cooking real food for my kids. I found myself putting my hands in the dirt and planting things, learning the hard way that you don't yell a plant into growing; you just create the conditions and wait.

Gardening and cooking kept me anchored to this world when nothing else—perhaps outside of my kids—did.

I thought I was just passing the time.

I was actually using the oldest tools I had.

When the rest of my constructed identity burned to the ground, those tools survived. Some part of Norma Jean was still right there in the dirt, at the stove, keeping me anchored when I thought I had completely lost myself.

The question isn't "Who am I when I'm not successful?"

It's "What parts of me were never dependent on success in the first place?"

The answer is the work of my hands. Curiosity. Family. The things my mother taught me.

She didn't just give me life. She gave me the infrastructure to rebuild it. Decades later, I'm finally learning how to use those tools not just to survive, but to actually live.https://scontent.fiow1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t39.30808-6/772713745_122117259717370600_5069966120213056701_n.jpg?stp=dst-jpg_tt6&cstp=mx960x960&ctp=s960x960&_nc_cat=108&ccb=1-7&_nc_sid=127cfc&_nc_ohc=8kdKpArqgGoQ7kNvwEN7QuH&_nc_oc=AdrePZpycSs2s3AVwvrkawILmQNvlbb7ef-7Ot_uADbkgKnnTB6lBlksKTcWdvvKD0k&_nc_zt=23&_nc_ht=scontent.fiow1-1.fna&_nc_gid=bs8rWA9BYHEKFXKeotkjbg&_nc_ss=7b2a8&oh=00_AQHSoHGs6oCntAaxtp9YLp0hRgtayRG6bkiFcEXc7yMrvA&oe=6A83B92E