Out
Out of tea, out of beer, out of pistachios.
But I do have more of all three.
So, a question. If my mother does insist on a relationship, pushes for contact, I have this idea. Not meant to be cruel, but will likely not feel good to her.
One requirement, she has to get to know me, not as I hid from her since I was small to refrain from alienating my only semblance of protection. Or dissembled later to protect her sensibilities and out of habit. But me, as I have lived, with my agnosticism, sexuality, tattoos, swearing, love of beer and Moby, - and criticisms of her. How? By reading this blog, a substantial, representative sample. IF that doesn't put her off, IF she still likes me after that, then, well, then I'll put whatever effort in to get to know her, as she is now. Call every week, even go out to visit as time and finances allow.
My SIL can set her up with internet, she's on fecesbook so I know SIL's at least that computer savvy. I will send mother my old MacBook, if necessary. OK, so this has to include her dealing for the first time with computers, but that's just an unintended benefit to her (she probably won't see it that way.) She is 84, as far as I know never even had a debit card - only uses checks.
Is this unfair? Impossible? She may never really push, she has every right to refuse. But, if she can't bother to get to know who I am, I'm really not up to putting in the effort to placate. Do I open myself up to her so completely? Well, I'm fine with that, and it will be a bit like asking her to look at me naked. I'll stand naked before anyone, if necessary. She can mind what she sees, but I'm asking her to prove it with her version of love, thrown into my version. Can a mother and daughter find love in bare truth? I doubt it, but if she wants it, and is willing to get to know me, I will meet her more than halfway.
Will I take her equally naked? Yes. If she is game, I will.
Too much to ask? Only she can absolutely decide, of course. But for me to ask this, as a condition for future contact? I'm not threatening estrangement, just knowing it will happen, and informing her. I will not, cannot, pretend and perform, again. It's truth from here out, or I walk away.
She's the one who taught me that if the other kids were playing mean to just walk away. She's not been playing fair, and I walked away. I have no problem doing it again.
Labels: mother
Posted by Zhoen on Thursday, October 27, 2011
7 comments:
a fair offer.
She has to learn, albeit belatedly, to know you as a person.
If she cannot accept you as we do, tough.
gz,
I am touched.
I also feel I must offer in her defense, that I was the one to hide from her. I have to take responsibility for that.
I recognise so much what you say about hiding yourself from your mother for self-protection, and from very young. The conditions of my upbringing were nothing like as tough as yours, I'm sure, butI did that too, and still find it hard to say how much was my own choice and my own personality, and how much was a reaction to unreasonable pressure. Sometimes I still reproach myself for a kind of cowardice in doping so, and sometimes I don't.
Whatever, that's how it happened. That was in another country, and besides.
I don't know about the blog condition. Something tells me she won't take you up on it anyway - if she couldn't understand, accept and protect you before she's unlikely to go to that much trouble now, even if she says she is, and your offering of something so important to you is more likely to be met with more potentially hurtful incomprehension. So I'd urge caution, I think.
That's supposed to be 'doing',not 'doping'.
I hope she takes you up on the offer, she will certainly learn a lot by reading your blog.
it's an unusual 84 year old who gets to grips with the internet for the first time at that point in their life, i guess
Lucy,
All valid points that crossed my mind, but you put it much better. "Hurtful incomprehension" is the most likely result. And, we can't compare one bad to another, each exists alone, each while being lived the worst.
Phil,
Yes, she would.
FireBird,
Agreed. I sincerely doubt she will. But, you just never know. And it would be good for her, expand her world. She is a potentially intelligent woman, but she limited herself so much.
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