My mother is the most supportive person I know and the most destructive. She’s destructive in the sense that she can bring me up and make me feel like I am the most valuable person and then the next make me feel like the shittiest person. She can be soooo controlling and manipulative but also let’s me tell her everything, helps me with papers, vent about boys and work stress and my father. And she reminds me that I am enough when I don’t feel worthy of anyone’s affection or love. But ughhh she can be so frustrating sometimes. Yelling at me for not cleaning something right, not managing my money good enough. GOD, she is the most frugal person I know. She won’t let me go to California on a cheap plane ticket to visit my family like I always do, I work my ass off at the REC and pay my own rent, and only spend money on coffee and the occasional meal and she still harps on me.
She is a planner. Boy does she plan, months in advance. Like I’m a planner and I love routine, but less extreme. Oh and she’s a workaholic, raised by an alcoholic mother, and abusive stepfathers. My grandma was sober for 26 years when I was like ten. But they say addiction and drug abuse can be correlated with an “addiction” gene. I see my mother’s addiction to work transpire in stressing herself out, her hands always striking her Macbook keyboard so ferociously I can hear her typing from my room way down the hall. She spends weekends buying books for her students, meeting with colleagues on conference calls, planning lessons for her library. Her work has paid off, from lawyer to teacher to now librarian media specialist. She claimed that by being a librarian she could do less work and relax a little because she wouldn’t have a ton of papers to grade, but I don’t see her slowing down. oh and she’s brilliant. I mean freaking smart. She was a national merit scholar when she was in high school and previously a lawyer who attended Reed College. She’s the best writer I know, words just string magically together when she puts pent to paper. She’s of course been published, both creative and professional teaching work. Ideas ooze out of her like lava. My mom even has been interviewed on C-SPAN for like 30 minutes.
She always wins in arguments, I’m sure she was a stellar lawyer. Yet she’s a bit crazy. I mean crazy like she yells at me all the time, like everything I do is wrong. Everything is a dramatic battle. and honestly it’s so dumb because I am like the world’s most responsible person. I’m driven and never got into trouble. Our relationship is much healthier now that I am in college and it’s long distance. I don’t go home over breaks anymore because I don’t want her to tear me apart.
She is the most social person I know, always on the phone with friends constantly. She often puts her social calendar before me, I don’t mind, I’ve just learned to do the same. She goes on walks with friends every night, I mean she LIVES for walks and the huge beach tree that’s in our neighbors backyards. She claims that the way the leaves change, how they turn auburn in the fall afternoon is “LIFE CHANGING.” She is extreme, intense. And the majority of the time makes me feel like my decisions are unworthy, like I’m not good enough. It’s so annoying when she says I don’t save money and gets mad at me when I work my ass off at the REC, pay my own rent and am so busy trying to be prepared enough for my career that I’m drowning. Ugh, whatever…
She talks a little too loud and shouts a little too much. I think it’s because she is deaf in one year, born like that. My Mother drives too fast and brakes too hard. She is full of life and sometimes love. Her swing dance classes she takes on Tuesdays and Thursdays nights, she told me “it’s to distract myself from losing you.” She is a tea lover and fan of weak coffee, gross. I like my coffee strong.
I have such different interests from her. She likes the mountains, I like the ocean. She hates anything/ can’t do anything athletic and that’s all I’ve ever known. She hates makeup and shopping for clothes, something that’s always on my radar. Sometimes looking good is what gets me through the day (lol half the time I look like shit) I sometimes wonder how she raised me. Then I remember I’m passionate, intense, head strong, articulate. That’s how I know I’m her daughter.