Thankless, is Mother

An ode to the motherly habits that dive into the depths of oneself. Because the “MAN” we are—derives from it.

The data gathered from my latest internal conquests is simple: I can really hate myself. But that’s nothing new. Like someone with a timeshare, I’ve got territory permanently reserved in the deepest plains of self-loathing. And let’s be honest—it never feels like a vacation, for me or my partner.

The goal of these internal trips is to compare what was with what is. I think this is where that very human urge toward comparison comes from. One point I’ve been reflecting on: being the mule between two mental worlds is a thankless job. Plain and simple. Simple on paper—or in a Google Doc—but very few are able to hold that truth with a full chest.

This is where the mother figure comes to mind. For anyone who’s seen their mother continuously show up for the people who mattered most—even when those people were addicts, or emotionally absent, or broken in ways no one else had patience for—you know what I mean. While everyone else ditched, there was still mother. And at some point, I realized: it wasn’t that she was broken. It was just mother, being mother. And that’s that. That always seems to be the case. We rarely celebrate that role with the weight it deserves. We give a shoutout here and there—usually post “FUCK OFF” phase—but mostly, we accept it as “that’s just mom.” Which is fine. But what a task: to steer the emotional ships of entire human lives… and watch them sail away. And as we sail off, we experience our lives through a more independent lens.

Three or four days have gone by since I arrived at this internal timeshare I seem so committed to revisiting. But this time, something feels off. This place no longer calls to me. Yes, there’s still data to collect, but the location no longer resonates. No longer provides a spark.

The first thought that comes up is: I can’t just cut this timeshare loose. I’ve learned so much here. I’ve put in decades of work understanding every nook and cranny. Like a toxic relationship, I’ve been thinking up every excuse in the book to stay. Because the fear of losing even this—this place that actively hinders me—is real. It shakes me. I can’t lie—my partner and I have already worked through this fear countless times. But this last trip showed me something else: research and introspection are only part of progress. Another critical factor is belief. And belief has been a hard ask for me. One reason? I’ve become dependent on outside validation. (I’m a performer at heart. What can I say?) That dependency can help to a point. But when it contradicts internal green flags instead of supporting them—you’ve got a real problem.

Under the hood of this dependency, everything seems in place… except one function:

const PROCESS_VALIDATION = NULL;

What we’ve got here is a constant—defined once, immutable throughout the program’s execution. Sounds a little stubborn, no?

Okay, so we’ve got a basic understanding of constants in programming. But what the actual fuck? Process validation can’t be updated at any point during the runtime? No matter what input is given—high-value input, green-flag input—it’s all disregarded. The output? NULL.

This might be the work of a very stubborn programmer.

How is anyone supposed to understand their worth if nothing gets processed? This bug makes the entire program prone to existential loops. Maybe this loop served some purpose when I was younger—some background process meant to keep me alert. Or maybe I just made do with what emotional bandwidth I had.

But it’s not working anymore.

At this point in my life, I want to be aware of the self-validation I’ve earned—not just to embody it in this reality, but to pass it on. I want to leave better code for my future magic baby.

Now, implementing new code isn’t something that happens overnight. In my case, I’ve been working through it with my partner nearly every day for the past two years. Still, this bug keeps whispering that bliss comes from outside sources. How do you measure that? You can’t. Not when the validator is hardcoded to return null.

So what does that lead to? A witch hunt. One that chases meaning from every glance, every silence, every missed text. It’s madness.

So how do we debug this?

Consider the mother’s approach. Let’s build a schema:

Sees an individual in pain → console log

Monitor progress → console log

Reassess → console log again

Repeat

It’s imperfect, recursive, slow—but it’s stable. It holds. It works.

There’s so much complexity packed into that model. But maybe the point isn’t to unpack all of it. Maybe the real goal is to recognize what inspires the process, and what sustains it.

And for me, that origin—thankless, stubborn, and quietly divine—is mother.