Mommy Dearest: Happy Mother's Day

My relationship with my mother isn’t much of a relationship at all.  In fact, I don’t call my family.  I don’t visit them.  I rarely know what’s going on.  I wonder what they must think of this wanderlust in me.  I suppose most families stay in one place and don’t move around.  I mean, my entire family is still in Chicago and right now they all live on the same block in Chicago.  I have lived in several places and I now live in Minneapolis. 

I remember I couldn’t wait to go to college. I couldn’t wait to get away.  I remember missing the holidays and the conveniences of my city but not my family.  Why did I want to get away so badly?  I wanted to have space.  I wanted to be able to be myself (fine job at that…).  I suppose I felt like I couldn’t do that in my house.  I know that I didn’t get a positive response from my family regarding my emotions but I am kinda over at this point in my life.  I am more willing to be who I am and not conform.  This has taken years to come out but it’s here and now that it’s finally here I think I should try to build some relationships with my siblings but most importantly, my mother.

I have always had an interesting relationship with my mother.  I remember feeling like she was the most perfect person in the world.  I remember wanting her to come home from work just so I could be around her.  I knew she was tired but as I kid I didn’t understand that.  My mother is very loving.  I didn’t see her that way as a child all the time.  I spent a lot of time with my grandparents because my mom worked a lot. 

She danced on Saturdays.  I use to love to watch my mother dance and sing.  That’s definitely where I get that from; she was just so free and young.  Sometimes in my mind my mother will always be 27.  I know most people don’t remember their mom’s at such a young age but I have a young mother.  We are only 20 years apart. 

This blog seems all over the place right now but I am just trying to get some stuff out.

I am currently nonreving back to Minnesota after a long trip.  The flight attendant working the flight is a beautiful woman named Ilham.  She is perhaps one of the most adorable creatures I have ever met.  She just has a good spirit.  She is pregnant now and she was asking me when (not if) I was going to have children.  (This has been a hot topic and it sounds like another blog) I told her I don’t know if I want children anymore and the older I get the further I get away from it.  Eventually she asked me how often do I talk to my mother and I said maybe once a month.  She immediately responded, “that’s [the reason] why.” 

I had never thought for one second that my relationship with my parents would affect my thoughts about having children.  She then asked me, “what do you plan to do with my mother when she gets old, put her in a nursing home?”  I told her, NO! My mother would rather live independently than be in a nursing home.  I told her that I would provide her with her own apartment or she would live with me.  I would never do that to my mother.  I am not judging people who do. I know that some parents make the decision themselves to go to a nursing home but that’s just not what we did in my family.  I grew up in the house with my grandparents.  My family has always been together and we will always be together.  It’s just not what we do. 

I think she figured I would say ye to putting my mother in a home but I am not that cold.  I do love my mother and I am not sure I have shown her the love she has shown me.  I appreciate everything.  I appreciate every sacrifice and perhaps seeing how much she struggled keeps me from children?  I am not sure.  I just never thought about it that way. 

I should call her more.  I think that all the time.  I know she misses me.  I am her Tracie Baby.  That’s what she use to call me.  I am not sure if I am feeling more sentiment to her because I am older or because I understand more of what she had to go through.  I see the sacrifice she made.  I know that family is important to her.  My Chica is my mother in a lot of ways and I didn’t understand how important my Chica’s family way to her until I took her away from them for a couple of days.   Even when my Chica isn’t showing it, just like my mother, she loves her children.  She wouldn’t have had them if she didn’t love them.

In fact, my mother has such an interesting contract with all her Sheep.  I wonder why I spent so many years away.  I don’t necessarily feel like I want to go back permanently. I just think I want to go back more often.  Now that I am more grounded, I think I can handle it more.  Ilham just calls her dad to ask how he is doing.  I can’t think of the last time I called my mother to ask how she was doing.

I wonder what she thinks of me.  I suppose on some levels it’s not important.  I feel bad for ever making her think that what she has done for me wasn’t good enough.  It must be hard for her to watch us fall some times but she agreed to it.  She has given me so much freedom and I am so grateful for it. 

So what now?