Even if we aren’t one (in the traditional sense), we have one. Our mothers, gone or as distant as they may be, are familiar to us in the way that we know and understand ourselves as women.

Whether we like it or not, she is not only responsible for our existence, but she is at the core of who we are. She becomes more recognizable each time we look in the mirror or hear ourselves speak.

She is the one with most of the answers to our questions, though sometimes those answers might sting. She is the source of strength and stability we depend on and crave in times of doubt.

She is the example and standard we measure everything else against while we seek every other way to prove her wrong.

She is often the superego to our id, or perhaps the other way around. She may be the one that hurt us the most, but she is the one we will end up forgiving.

And she may be the source of much of our inner conflicts - conflicts we may choose to examine or fiercely deny.

The thing about mothers is that we cannot escape them. We reach for them initially out of necessity and impulse. We then learn to wander away but expect to see her waiting for us each time we turn around. She is either there, or she isn’t. We finally embrace her as the only mother we will ever have.

The thing about mothers is that they are us.