Dear Mama, I Blame You For the Broken Family That We Have
And I hate that I’m wrong about everything
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In a 2016 Netflix documentary film, I Am Not Your Guru, Tony Robbins delivered a piece of brutal advice to an audience. Excuse the profanity, but this message couldn’t be any more realistic.
“If you’re gonna blame people for all the sh*t, you better blame them for all the good too. If you’re gonna give them credit for everything that’s f*cked up, then you have to give them credit for everything that’s great. Blame elegantly, blame intelligently, blame effectively. Blame at the level of your soul, not at the level of your f*cking head. Because life is not so simple, and black and white.”
— Tony Robbins
We are only human. And broken is beautiful.
So here’s my story
Back in the 90s, my mom used to work in Japan as an entertainer. She is the best singer that I’ve ever known. Better than Beyoncé and Celine, combined. She’s so good at it that I would place my mouth in front of an electric fan while singing, just to get the right amount of vibrato she effortlessly does.
The sad truth is, I could only hear her sing through those recorded tapes. Her golden voice is hidden inside the cassette player. That’s the only mother’s voice I recognized of her as a child. A device that I would play and pause, and rewind and play all over again. I would talk to her as she speaks. And then I would get mad at her for not letting me finish talking.
She will then ask me what I want for my birthday so that she could bring them back home. Then I would get mad again at her for not letting me finish thinking about it first. She keeps on talking. And crying. And singing.
The cassette player became my mom.
And I blame her for not allowing me to live a normal childhood. Everybody walks down the street with their momma holding their hands going to the park. But I would go back home — alone from school — and hit those cassette buttons to listen to her scripted message over and over again.
“Because that’s the only mother’s voice I recognized of her…
