Regurgitation
Old thoughts running around in my brain. Working with a nurse I once worked with, years ago. Drama all the way. And I'm much more in love with boring, aka reliable and pleasantly dull. Remembering working the burn room in Boston's hospital, the heat, and the guy who'd been found electrocuted on top of a commuter train after a bar crawl (alive, if you can call it that.) Old names cropping up like floating corpses, not really welcome.
I often think of my mother, to whom I have not spoken for over five years. I think about calling her, of course I do, but then some angry memory bobs to the surface, the insistence on pastels (that I hated), that I had to go buy my own tampons at age 11, because she was clueless, and there was no kind of communication between us. She wasn't bad when I was a child, but my maturation was an unbridgeable gap that never closed, and she showed no interest in me as an adult. It's all too sad, but we never really liked each other as people, in no small part because I never let her get to know me when I became so much of what she was clearly on record as hating.
I sometimes feel so deeply unknown by those who most loudly claimed "unconditional love" to me. There is no such thing. Parents may feel great and powerful emotions toward their children, many I am sure do. But if they don't bring those strong urges into the reality of the people they have raised, and accept them as separate individuals that interest them, that they admire, their offspring will be lost to them, in part or whole. All love is conditional, parental love especially. We strive to earn their respect, and know, despite reassurances, that we'd better live the kind of life they value, or we will not be loved at all.
Love is more that this. Love is a process, a trade, but one where each feels eternally indebted to the other, an overflow of admiration and joy. It can happen with parents and offspring, I've seen it. I just have no idea how that would feel.
I was the daughter my mother longed for, except that I wasn't. Huge disappointment for her. Not entirely my fault. Some deeply deviant side of myself.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad...
The air is a poison fug in this valley, worst in the country. I go outside for a smoke. Which is to say, I go outside and breathe. My lungs hurt, my eyes rasp in my head, my thoughts are murky. Had to report a dead deer at work. A small scrub area surrounds the building, we often see deer in the winter, come down from the foothills. Yesterday I saw one lying flat out among the small trees, it never moved from morning to afternoon. I kept hoping, although I knew, as one does.
I often think of my mother, to whom I have not spoken for over five years. I think about calling her, of course I do, but then some angry memory bobs to the surface, the insistence on pastels (that I hated), that I had to go buy my own tampons at age 11, because she was clueless, and there was no kind of communication between us. She wasn't bad when I was a child, but my maturation was an unbridgeable gap that never closed, and she showed no interest in me as an adult. It's all too sad, but we never really liked each other as people, in no small part because I never let her get to know me when I became so much of what she was clearly on record as hating.
I sometimes feel so deeply unknown by those who most loudly claimed "unconditional love" to me. There is no such thing. Parents may feel great and powerful emotions toward their children, many I am sure do. But if they don't bring those strong urges into the reality of the people they have raised, and accept them as separate individuals that interest them, that they admire, their offspring will be lost to them, in part or whole. All love is conditional, parental love especially. We strive to earn their respect, and know, despite reassurances, that we'd better live the kind of life they value, or we will not be loved at all.
Love is more that this. Love is a process, a trade, but one where each feels eternally indebted to the other, an overflow of admiration and joy. It can happen with parents and offspring, I've seen it. I just have no idea how that would feel.
I was the daughter my mother longed for, except that I wasn't. Huge disappointment for her. Not entirely my fault. Some deeply deviant side of myself.
They fuck you up, your mum and dad...
The air is a poison fug in this valley, worst in the country. I go outside for a smoke. Which is to say, I go outside and breathe. My lungs hurt, my eyes rasp in my head, my thoughts are murky. Had to report a dead deer at work. A small scrub area surrounds the building, we often see deer in the winter, come down from the foothills. Yesterday I saw one lying flat out among the small trees, it never moved from morning to afternoon. I kept hoping, although I knew, as one does.
Posted by Zhoen on Tuesday, January 12, 2010
7 comments:
Being a middle child I have a rather specific relationship with my parents and siblings (older brother, younger sister). Having as favourite role models Daneel Olivaw, Commander Spock and Lt Command Data, my emotional intelligence suffered. I hope to still be a good father to my own progeny, however.
(o) As a child of a parent I disappointed, I hear you. As the parent of a child I cannot make happy -- and whom I probably also disappointed -- I also hear you.
The most quoted Larkin poem seems to be "They fuck you up...". A sombre offering. Yet the rest of his work is well worth the reading.
A happier expression can be found in Kahlil Gibran's "The Prophet", "On Children", which can be seen at:
http://www.sfheart.com/children.html
Phil, I'm sure you are, and will be. My friends who are parents like this book, which is based on real research, not just anecdotal experiences. Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child: The Heart of Parenting. John Gottman.
alembic,
I'm sorry. No one can give anyone else happiness, though. It has to grow from inside.
Avus,
I will go look, thanks.
Moving thousands of miles away from my parents was in many ways the best thing I did for myself, if nothing else but to get out from underneath the shadow of their expectations.
Sometimes the way love is expressed and the way love is needed are two different languages.
Thanks for the tip, I'll keep the Gottman book in mind.
This is just a beautiful post.
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