My Mum, the Rebel Trailblazing Diva
How self-understanding helped me recognise the vulnerability and courage in my biggest cheerleader
Dropping my mum off at the airport for her flight back to Spain, I watched her walk away with her black Rains Mac and tiny backpack, trudging through the snow-sludge in her stompy black boots, with a familiar mix of gratitude and longing. She is at the same time the most stylish and the most streamlined traveler I know, travelling lighter than anyone I have ever met. As I drove home, the love and sadness lingered — joy for the strength of the bond we have now, mixed with a quiet and persistent ache for the years where our connection was weaker.
For years, I didn’t fully understand who my mum was. She was always my biggest supporter and cheerleader, but I didn’t see the vulnerability behind her confident and gregarious mask. Now I look at her and feel awe. She isn’t just my mum; she’s a trailblazer who defied convention in ways I’m only now beginning to appreciate, far braver than I have ever been, even as she heads towards retirement.
Getting sober forced me to confront my childhood in a new way. I’d grown up caught between two people whose separation I could never quite untangle. My dad’s refusal to speak to my mum in the aftermath left an invisible scar, one I carried without realising. As a child, I didn’t know how to hold both my parents’ truths in my hands and so I picked a side without meaning to, unconsciously, and that choice stayed with me for years.
As a drinker, I didn’t notice my dad’s drinking. I didn’t mind all the times he didn’t want to leave the pub because I didn’t want to leave either. As a teenage boozehound, I thought my dad getting chabongered every weekend was cool. Funny. Normal.
It wasn’t until I experienced my own heartbreak from trying to make a life with someone in the thrall of alcohol, that I began to see my mum more clearly. I became her, and in the process, I understood the courage it took for her to walk away. I chose to do the same thing, before motherhood, and it was brutal. I felt judged by the friends who loved us both and I judged myself.
My mum made her decision in the early 90s. Her parents were still solidly in love, well on their way to their golden wedding anniversary, from a generation that didn’t really divorce. She must have been judged for wanting more and ‘abandoning’ her husband. All sympathy was directed to my dad. At least that’s how I remember it.
Now, as a mother myself, I feel the weight of the almost unbearable love that comes with parenthood. With motherhood. To nurture something before it even walks the earth does something to your heart and psyche… My mum used to tell me I’d understand if I ever became a mother. Back then, I heard it as criticism, I thought I would probably end up child-free, and it felt like she was saying I wouldn’t evolve sufficiently. But now I see her words for what they were: a bridge she was trying to build between us.
I joke that my mum is a diva, but it’s more accurate to call her a rebel. She pushes against the expectations of what a woman, a mother or a wife should be, what they should accept. Often at great personal cost.
When I was younger, her defiance and autonomy intimidated me. The most shrinking of the shrinking violets, I didn’t want to draw any attention to myself. I didn’t want to be like her, and said so —not because I didn’t love her, but because I couldn’t yet see how badly her rebellion was needed.
Recently, I recommended Alma’s Not Normal, a brilliant TV series about three generations of eccentric northern women, each struggling against their own set of constraints, which I urge you to watch if you haven’t already.
In the final episode, with a recent diagnosis of terminal lung cancer, the grandmother says to her granddaughter, in response to seeing her first live stand-up set: “I am proud of every rebellious decision I ever made.”
That line felt like a gift, a truth I didn’t know I needed to hear. It made me think of my mum, who has always made choices that go against convention and which I now see as rebellious and brave.
When I look back, I realise how many of her decisions I misunderstood as a child. She shrugged off so many of the expectations that trap women in lives of quiet resentment. She fought for her freedom, even when it meant being misunderstood. Even by her own children.
I hope her rebellion is a kind of legacy. That every bold decision she made — every time she chose her autonomy over society’s approval — paved the way for the life I have now. I had a baby in the end, but my mum never made me feel like I would be less of a woman if I didn’t. She taught me, not through words but through action, that living authentically, whatever that means to me, is worth the cost.
These days, I try to carry her bravery with me. I remind myself that self-understanding is a lifelong journey and that it’s never too late to rewrite the stories we’ve been told about ourselves and our families. To admit defeat and start over. Learning about addiction and getting sober was a step in our walk back to each other; understanding Autism and ADHD was crucial too.
My mum isn’t perfect, but she is more honest than anyone I know (this frequently gets her into trouble) and she is kind, underneath her diva disguise. Her authenticity has allowed me to embrace my own imperfect, messy, beautiful life. Her ambition has inspired me to strive in spite of repeated setbacks.
We are already talking about when she will return for her next stay. I can’t wait to go and collect her, with her tiny backpack. I dream of her moving back, to live around the corner from me, just like the trad mums and daughters that I’ve grown up alongside. And it’s not only because she helps so much with my baby, (though what a godsend) but because her presence reminds me of who I want to be: a little braver, a little bolder, and ever more unapologetically myself.
Chelsey Flood is the author of award-winning novels Infinite Sky and Nightwanderers, and a senior lecturer in creative writing at UWE. She is currently working on a book about getting sober and then finding out she’s autistic and her first domestic thriller.