Disinviting Your Biological Family to Your Graduation

At all my graduations until this one, my mom was in the audience yelling “That’s my baby!” to the top of her lungs.
Hearing her, no one would’ve guessed that outside of public, climatic moments, I was unclaimed and uncelebrated by her.
I’m so grateful that, whether they liked it or not, I chose to set boundaries where necessary within my family of origin before this graduation so I felt comfortable extending the few tickets I had to graduation to my husband, our daughters, and my chosen sister and brother who all celebrate and interact with me like God intended.
If you’re a woman with mother-daughter trauma, chances are, like me, your favorite people don’t share your blood.
Let’s normalize doing life with the people we WANT to be around and not the people toxic family tradition claims we “should!”