spirit

When I was eighteen or so, my mother began to listen to me sometimes. It wasn't what I would consider a particularly repectful listening, but it was rooted in the fact that I made sense every now and then, although probably not nearly as often as I thought I did, frequently drunk as I was at that age.

Regardless, she'd begun to listen from time to time and that gave me something new, a new edge that I hadn't had before in the days when she disregarded everything I said out of hand. And so, when I shouted at her in the middle of an argument - "You've done EVERYTHING for me? How is that possible? My entire childhood was nothing but pain!!", she stopped dead like I'd slapped her and doubled over and began to cry. Because she heard me that time. It's one of the many things I wish so much I'd never said to her, never done to push her even further away while I still lived at home and had time and distance on my side.

It wasn't true. It was an exaggeration. My childhood contained a great deal of pain, but that isn't all I left home with when I went. She gave me many gifts that I have learned to appreciate and feel proud of. My work ethic. My pride. My drive and my strength. These are all from my mother. Sometimes they are excessive, as she sometimes was excessive, but they are functional and they make me successful when things are difficult.

I wish that when my mother began to listen to me that I had said something good to her. I wish I'd let her help me choose my graduation dress. I wish I'd sat and put my arm around her more often when she sat watching tv in the evenings. I wish I'd tried so much harder to keep my room clean so that her OCD wouldn't drive us apart forever. I could have done better.

It isn't only adults who hurt children, sometimes children hurt adults too. It's not supposed to be that way between a mother and a child, and as my mother approaches sixty and her second hip replacement surgery seems inevitable, I am trying to think of ways to close the distance between us. It's supposed to be the mother who loves the child unconditionally and forgives easily, but it hasn't been that way with us.

I want her to see that I have forgiven her and that I've put my hurt behind me... and perhaps in that way, she can too. Maybe if I make the first steps.