Joanna's Rock

Mama Yola

My mom has always been my rock and an inspiration to me growing up. She didn’t allow any obstacles to get in her way, and she went through a lot after we emigrated from Poland. We had nothing, but she never gave up. She was a fighter and that is where I get my strong personality from as well as the fight inside me to never give up. To me, family is everything and I would do anything for my mom. She has always been my best friend, not only a mother. I feel I can speak with her about anything.

I have helped raise Marta since I was very young, but I don’t feel it took away from my childhood in any way. It made me stronger and caused me grow up faster, but I wouldn’t change it if I had the opportunity. I always wanted to be mama’s helper and never let her down.  To this day that’s what I try to do, because I don’t believe I would be where I am if it wasn’t for her. If I didn’t have my fight, drive, and the thick skin, I probably would have given up on my dreams a long time ago; I wouldn’t be able to handle the rejections and vicious people. But instead I am living my dream now and achieving more and more success every year of my life. Sharing it with someone special like Romain makes it all so much better.

When I met Romain almost 6 years ago, he had nothing and was in debt, but I fell in love with him for his heart, the kind person he was, and for the way he treated my family. He adopted them as part of his own.  I was always independent and I never had to rely on a man for money, which is why I didn’t care that Romain wasn’t rich. To me, life was about more than just money. I knew we would be fine, and now we are both living the American dream, but that doesn’t make our life any easier. More success means more headaches – jealousy, lies, rumors, etc.  My life is definitely far from perfect, and each day I learn from my mistakes (because I have made plenty). But I guess that’s a normal part of life as long as you don’t make the same mistake twice. Talking to mom about my past and also my future made me realize that it’s not Romain who’s holding off the wedding, it’s me. I put my career first and never for a second made him my number one priority. Growing up and being independent I guess I forgot that men need to feel wanted, and being bicoastal definitely doesn’t help the situation. Finding the emails definitely put doubts in my mind, but as much as I want to believe him that nothing more happened, I feel it will always stick in the back of my mind whether he was telling the truth. He is the last person on the planet that I believe would be capable of cheating on me, because I know he loves me more than anything. No one besides my mom knows the past year of our life, and that is why I am not putting all the blame on him when it comes to the emails. As my mom said, maybe the emails were a wakeup call for both of us. For me mostly, because I have been delaying setting a date because of work, but now that I am ready, he is the one that seems not to be in a hurry. It seems like he got used to the living situation and is not taking what I say seriously, because I always said if a big gig comes along, I will end up having  to reschedule the wedding. I guess only time will tell now when and if we get married and if I can get past the emails/texts…

Motherly Advice