I love my mom. She is a wonderful, strong person and I think she did a pretty decent job raising me and my brothers. However, despite the awesome person she is, we have never been extraordinarily close. When I went through my angsty, hormone ridden, “I’ll never fit in and everything is the biggest deal in the world” teenage phase at the end of middle school I refused to let anyone in–especially my mother. And even when I calmed down in High School, the pattern already seemed set and so I didn’t clue my mom in on that many aspects of my social life.
Unfortunately, this pattern has continued to this day. I think we have made a little progress, mostly due to the fact that I have matured and no longer feel the need to blame my mother for things in my life, and partially due to the fact that I have my own life now and we have a healthy space of about 100 miles between us. And yet, while I respect my mother and her opinions, I can’t seem to bring myself to bridge the gap, to go deeper with her, to make her my friend as well as my mother. I didn’t used to be bothered so much by this, but now that I am an adult, I feel like we should be peers, and I should be able to share more with her. The playing field has leveled somewhat and I find myself wishing that I could change things. In my dream world, instead of feeling awkward around my mother, we’re as good of pals as the Gilmore Girls.
However, in reality my mother and I have wildly different personalities and I often find it hard to relate to her. She is a pessimist, always seeing flaws and needing to change things. She is strong and she is serious. I am the eternal optimist, always full of energy, bouncing around and overwhelming her. I just feel like I am never proper enough for her, and am often a source of embarrassment. I know she loves me, but she wants a different life for me than I want for myself, and its so obvious that I don’t call her as much as I should because I don’t want to here the same questions again. Questions like “have you thought about going back to school?” “What about working for the government? That would be an appropriate job for you” “Are there any chances for you to advance in your current job?” I just know that she doesn’t approve of the fact that I graduated from college and don’t already have a stellar office job with full benefits and a respectable salary. She doesn’t understand the twenty something life even though I know her own life story, and I know she went through a similar time in her life.
I feel like its a sick cycle where I want to be friends with her, but yet I dread talking to her at the same time. I feel awful even saying that because my mom is not an awful person. So why is it that every time I try to share something personal with her, I can’t get the words out? I’m about to start speaking, and then my throat closes up. I just think that as an adult, I ought to be able to have a real, meaningful relationship with her. But I can’t seem to break the pattern.
This is a relatable post. I have a very similar issue with my mother. I always feel like she thinks I’m failing at life. There are times that I feel we could become close, but then something always gets in the way. When I tell her about things I’m excited about she finds a way to cheapen my feelings. I’ve always wondered why this continues.