My mom comes into town next week.\u00a0 I am thrilled by this, of course.\u00a0 But, like most mothers and daughters, we have a, well, sort of unbalanced relationship.\u00a0 We are best friends with complicated insights about one another.\u00a0 Let’s face it, your other best friends never wiped your butt or saw you pick your nose AND your other best friends never came right out and said you were screwing up your life, even when you weren’t.\u00a0 It’s not bad or good, it’s just complicated.\u00a0 We can get under each other’s skin unlike anyone else, sometimes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
My mom’s side of the family is notorious for showing love by, how can I put this nicely, being mean spirited assholes to each other.\u00a0 My mom and my aunt have moved away from this type of behaviour but, essentially, it is a free for all at family reunions.\u00a0 If someone has a soft spot, you can bet your last dime that it will be laid out and peed upon before the day is through.\u00a0 Making fun of each other is what they do.\u00a0 We’ve all gotten used to it and try our best not to retaliate.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And, even though my mom has steered away from this terrible family tradition, she still manages to pull out some aces on me when we are together.\u00a0 Currently, she finds it riotous to call me a yuppie.\u00a0 I can’t recall I have ever heard her laugh as hard as when I told her I was folding laundry and then I was going to playgroup later that day. “Ooooooh, looks who’s the minivan driving yuppie!\u00a0 Who would have THOUGHT!”… Yeah.\u00a0 So, I take a deep breath.\u00a0 “Mom, it’s not a minivan, it’s a crossover SUV\/wagon – there’s a difference.”<\/p>\n
My identity is something I am very protective of.\u00a0 Not my “image” or my “style” – don’t get those things confused.\u00a0 I have clung to my indentity since I can remember.\u00a0 My ideals, my strengths, my opinions, my art, books that\u00a0I love, people that I care about, places I have been – all of these things have created who I am, obviously.\u00a0 And, I will admit, I had great diffuculty finding my way once I became a mother and, even more so, when I became a stay-at-home<\/a> one.\u00a0 But, I feel that – despite the suv\/wagon crossover and the fact that I drive through starbucks occassionally and the fact that I only get to\u00a0work in the studio once a week\u00a0– I have stayed my course and can honestly\u00a0say that I am\u00a0becoming a\u00a0better person and, yes, a good mother and wife.\u00a0 I understand that\u00a0the me of ten years ago would likely wage a protest if she ever\u00a0heard the me of now say\u00a0that it was important to be a good wife and mother.\u00a0 BUT,\u00a0the me of ten years ago\u00a0had never met the wonderful people that are my husband and kids, so how could she have known how important it would be?\u00a0<\/p>\n So, why should it bother me when my mom prattles on about – “oh, lisa, remember – you were supposed to be living in France right now being an eccentric artist!\u00a0 Ooooh, how the times have changed!!!”.\u00a0 Why does it bother me?\u00a0 It just does.\u00a0 I guess because I want my family to understand that, sure, I mourn those things.\u00a0 I feel sad, daily, about the youth that I didn’t have because I had a baby at 21 years old rather than to give it away (or worse).\u00a0I guess I want to know that at least she thinks I have worked it all out the right way.\u00a0 And, maybe the chortling is her weird, backwards way of giving it to me.\u00a0 Hell, I don’t know.\u00a0 I just know that France isn’t as important as it used to be – but it will be again one day.\u00a0 And, making a political and philosophical arguement out of everything isn’t something I have to do anymore, not because I’ve gone soft-yuppie, but because I live it rather than talk about it.\u00a0<\/p>\n So, I guess I’ll take this as an opportunity to let her in to my world a little bit more.\u00a0 I know we will have a blast.\u00a0 And, I know that she really does approve of my life – more so than anyone else.\u00a0 Maybe I can find a funny thread in her jokey-jokes.\u00a0 We’ll just have to wait and see, I suppose.. I know she means no harm.. I guess it’s just my achilles heel.\u00a0 Damn it, I guess this means I have to do more growing and finding my\u00a0own confidence\u00a0and crap like that.\u00a0 Why can’t it be some one else’s turn to learn a lesson for a change???<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My mom comes into town next week.\u00a0 I am thrilled by this, of course.\u00a0 But, like most mothers and daughters, we have a, well, sort of unbalanced relationship.\u00a0 We are best friends with complicated…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,59,64,3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-421","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-communication","category-daily-living","category-mental-environment","category-parenting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=421"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/421\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=421"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=421"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.familyresource.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=421"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}