In yesterday’s post, I was talking about how when I was young, I didn’t see a future for me. I mean that both literally and figuratively. I did not see myself being alive or wanting to be alive. I honestly thought I’d be dead by my mother’s age (which at that time was 55, so I would have been 26. So, yeah, this was all of my youth and young adulthood). No one asked what I wanted to do with my life, but if they had, I would not have had an answer? Want? As if I had a choice?
I never felt I did. My mother was not a Tiger Mom in the traditional sense of the word (constantly pushing me to be the best and putting me down if I wasn’t), but she did expect me to be busy all the time. And, yes, she did expect me to excel at everything, but she wasn’t pushy about it. It’s hard to explain the difference. She didn’t put me down; she just didn’t accept when I got less than perfect. It wasn’t even disappointment, really. If I got a B+ for example, she asked why it wasn’t an A.
She put me in dance when I was two; piano when I was six or seven; T-ball around the same age and then softball; and cello when I was eight or nine. We also played tennis, ping-pong, and volleyball. My brother played five or six different instruments.
During the summer, we had to go to summer school. I actually liked T-CITY (Twin Cities Institute for Talented Youth), where I took writing for two summers, acting for two summers, and Latin for one. I also met my first boyfriend there as we had after-class activities between the different groups. We played softball, Trivial Pursuit, and something else that I don’t remember. Some other ball sport.
My mother also expected me to go to college. I had no choice in that. Or at least I didn’t feel as if I did. And, then when I turned 26, the 15-year campaign to get me pregnant. There is no other way to put it. She commented when I was 26 that she had my brother at that age. I shrugged it off, thinking nothing of it because I had told her I did not want chldiren. MISTAKE. I learned much later that the best way to deal with my mother was to shine her on. JADE the hell out of her. Gray rock until the end of dawn.
But no. I was naive enough to think that if I just stated plainly that I did not want kids, that would be the end of that. Ha! That may work with reasonable people, but my mother is not reasonable when she has a bone in her mouth and will not let go.
So, yes, I thought that I had no choice in what I wanted to do with my life. I was supposed to get straight As, play in the orchestra, play sports, go to college, get a masters, get a good job, get married, and have 2 children. Has to be two. 0 is not enough and 3 is too many (my mother doesn’t like that my brother has 3, though she has never said it explicitly). When I was in my thirties, she was desperate enough that when I told her (this was before I learned to keep my mouth shut) that my then-boyfriend was wavering and thought he might want children, she said in all earnesty, “Why can’t you compromise and have one?”
Um.
How do you argue with someone who is that unreasonable? Having children is binary. You either do or you don’t. There is no compromise. One child is having children, full stop.
I spent my twenties and thirties deflecting my mother’s expectations as to how my life would go. Oh, I forgot to say, going to church. That was supposed to be part of my life as well. Add cooking to that because that’s what a wife and mother does, and you have the exact opposite of me.
When I was seeing my last therapist, I said to her that I was an utter disappointment to my mother. I listed all the ways I had fallen short in her eyes (and it still affects me, though much less so now). She said, “She’s a disappointment to you, too, and is not the mother you need.” It’s hard to say what my therapist said to me because it sounds so trite and obvious, but when you’re deep in the muck, it’s hard to see something right in front of your eyes.
Also, my mother had spent all my life exhorting me that my main purpose in life is to be her confidante. I was supposed to bolster her and make her feel good about herself. That’s why she took it as a personal insult when I declined to be a replica of her. Therefore, I spent most of my life feeling like a colossal waste of space because I could not possibly live up to whatmy mother demanded that I be.
My therapist pointing out that my mother was a disappointment to me as well really flip things on their head for me. Instead of being uber-conscious of what a failure I was (because of how far I fell from her ideal of the perfect woman), I really appreciated that my therapist gave me a different point of view. One that I had never thought of because my mother had brainwashed me from when I was young to think that I had no right to my own life.
Dying twice has changed all the perspectives of my life. Now that I have one. I don’t want to die for a third (and final, presumably) any time soon. I want to actually have goals and aims, and maybe find a fuck buddy or two. Hey. This is my life. Not the life of some mythical normal person. I am a freak, and I fully embrace that. I have immunity issues that means I spend most of my time alone. Well, with my cat. He’s the best.
Now, however, I realize that I can have a life that isn’t based on whatever my mother wants me to be. It’s only taken me half a century, but I’ve finally gotten there. It’s about damn time.