Mothers

This post should belong on mother's day, but I probably will not remember it then.

I have always had this crazy ability to impress every mother I have ever met, except one. I don't know if it is because on the surface I look like more than I am, and under the surface I really am nothing, or if I try extra hard around certain people and not others. Call it magic if you would like.

The only mother who is not dazzled by me is my own mother. For some reason she is not impressed by anything I have ever done. Sometimes I feel like all she sees is my failures: I didn't keep at my violin even though I was so good, I don't like the same things she does. I'm not done with college yet, I haven't fully moved out of the house, I don't finish everything I start. I don't know anything about how to work. I can't get a job and there must be something wrong with me. I don't know how to even clean the kitchen right when I get done with it. --No, with my mom nothing I do is good enough.

I spent a few hours of my spare time (during class and on the weekend when I was bored) pouring my heart and ideas into a 20month plan of my life. It includes the three main pillars of my life and leaves room for the fourth (graduation, film making, and my dating&relationships book/blog.) [& marriage]. Yesterday though, when I had time to talk to my mother about it, her response was: You can't handle that much of a work load. You will hate life. I don't know anyone who has been able to do that many classes all at once. --It was complete trash. My own mother doesn't believe in me. She never has.
And although my mother never has believed in me and trusted my abilities or encouraged me to do the things that I want to do--in spite of all that--I have been able to overcome. I went through a lot of crazy stuff because of my lack of maternal support and a father who isn't empathetic and isn't around all that often, but I have overcome those weights pulling me down, not giving me a fair chance. Now I am on the verge of breaking out of this situation, in 20 months I imagine that I will be in a new world structured around all of my own decisions. It will be a place I created, not one that other people created for me, and whatever I don't like about it, it will be my own fault and not theirs. That's really just what I want.

Back to mothers: my mother's never going to change. She's too old, she has her own problems to deal with. I can't go around expecting her to one day accept and encourage my decisions, but that doesn't mean I can't be happy. I love my mother, I understand her completely even though she's the most complex person I have ever met. I chose a few years ago not to let her bring me down, and that's why she hasn't hindered me. Meanwhile, other peoples' parents see me as a model child, I guess you could say I get all the love I need from them and I tend to latch on to those people who give me that support because I enjoy what I never got. I know though that one day I will get exactly what I want, and it drives me even harder to accomplish those things, almost as though I'm getting a future dose of support--taking it early, from people I don't hardly know.