A Dowry
What framed my life as a girl was the lingering impression that my mother was very unhappy. She dropped a lot of hints, so I didn't need much help formulating this theory. Around 9-14 years old I heard a lot about how she should never have married my father, or should have left him years ago (how can she put up with all this traveling? she'd ask); stories of longing about how she'd been a smart girl (skipped a grade even) and was now doing what? Raising two ungrateful daughters. And I was an accident. She'd temper these intimacies, that I'd have been more than happy not to share, with "but I'm so glad I have you, what would I do without you?" which, in light of the older sister's antics, gave me the oppressive feeling that it was now, all down to me. I would be held responsible for saving my mother.
As I grew into my teens she'd often discourage me from boys, I didn't need 'em she'd tell me, I should go to school and get a good job; which, thinking back was excellent advice. She warned me about depending on a husband, told me to take care of myself. Talked about how miserable it is be given an allowance and have no assets of your own. I should've focused on this self-improvement more, but like all young adults I focused on the thing I was warned to stay away from. I turned all my attention towards boys. I became a serial monogamist, a serious offence when your thirties roll around and you've actually lived with 3 different men, been married and divorced once, and in your heart still see yourself as a commitment phobe.
I moved away from my family as a strategy for avoiding my Mom's neediness. It's a complicated kind of neediness that I have given up on describing, because I ultimately come out looking insensitive. Maybe I am, I consider, when other folks tell me that family is very important to them, and they could never leave where they grew up and leave that very family behind. I made some tracks. I wanted the dust cloud to cover up what had turned into a massive failure. My siblings on the westcoast, rarely paying a visit, and me in the home town, expected for dinner only on special holidays. Mom only content communicating with me by phone and email as though I lived on another continent, rather than in another neighbourhood.
But the day I moved away for school was the day Mom wanted grandkids. The day I moved away was the day she thought I should be married and living in the suburbs. She started clipping eligible bachelors from the local paper and sending them to me in the mail. She'd keep an eye on the boys I'd grown up with and give me the running update should I maybe reconsider one of them. Then she'd pull back, angry, and threaten me with: "Well who would want you anyway, no man's going to want to take on your debt". And later, "I think that's why he broke up with you, he didn't want to be responsible for your student loans."
Mom had trotted out the latter statement as an explanation for a break-up I had initiated. Not content, she used it again as an explanation for a painfully failed affair with a best-friend. An affair, which she had hoped, was going to bring me back home.
As I grew into my teens she'd often discourage me from boys, I didn't need 'em she'd tell me, I should go to school and get a good job; which, thinking back was excellent advice. She warned me about depending on a husband, told me to take care of myself. Talked about how miserable it is be given an allowance and have no assets of your own. I should've focused on this self-improvement more, but like all young adults I focused on the thing I was warned to stay away from. I turned all my attention towards boys. I became a serial monogamist, a serious offence when your thirties roll around and you've actually lived with 3 different men, been married and divorced once, and in your heart still see yourself as a commitment phobe.
I moved away from my family as a strategy for avoiding my Mom's neediness. It's a complicated kind of neediness that I have given up on describing, because I ultimately come out looking insensitive. Maybe I am, I consider, when other folks tell me that family is very important to them, and they could never leave where they grew up and leave that very family behind. I made some tracks. I wanted the dust cloud to cover up what had turned into a massive failure. My siblings on the westcoast, rarely paying a visit, and me in the home town, expected for dinner only on special holidays. Mom only content communicating with me by phone and email as though I lived on another continent, rather than in another neighbourhood.
But the day I moved away for school was the day Mom wanted grandkids. The day I moved away was the day she thought I should be married and living in the suburbs. She started clipping eligible bachelors from the local paper and sending them to me in the mail. She'd keep an eye on the boys I'd grown up with and give me the running update should I maybe reconsider one of them. Then she'd pull back, angry, and threaten me with: "Well who would want you anyway, no man's going to want to take on your debt". And later, "I think that's why he broke up with you, he didn't want to be responsible for your student loans."
Mom had trotted out the latter statement as an explanation for a break-up I had initiated. Not content, she used it again as an explanation for a painfully failed affair with a best-friend. An affair, which she had hoped, was going to bring me back home.
posted by Francine at 9:00 a.m.
1 Comments:
stop running when things get in the way, It is for sure not fair of your mom to place things like that on you. However take them for what they are place them in a special jar and let go of them.
love kinder
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