THIS ONE'S FOR MOM

Did you watch the TV series EVERWOOD? If you're thinking that this blog should go in my TV JUNCTION FUNCTION BLOG, hold your horses because I have a point. I've only seen the first two seasons because that is all that's out on DVD (that wasn't the point). In season one Treat Williams' character asks his nurse (and friend) if fathers and sons don't get along because they have nothing in common. Obviously, he and his son are having MAJOR issues. Her response is that the problem between fathers and sons who don't get along is they have EVERYTHING in common. (I didn't use quotation marks because I didn't get it exactly right.) I was already thinking about my relationship with my mother when I thought about that scene. As an adult, I find myself nodding my head and saying, "Oh yeah." Then I think that it is a really good thing that I didn't see that show as a teenager because I might have done the television set bodily harm. Egads.


When I was in the third grade my teacher made a comment about me and mother not getting along. I don't remember the context of the remark, but I clearly remember her saying it and I thought it was odd even at the time. How did she know that my mother and I didn't get along? Strangely enough, I can't remember her name, her face, but I think her hair was red and she may have worn glasses. That's it. And she knew mom and I were already in this wierd little dynamic for power in our household. Too alike indeed.


Fast forward to high school and I remember being very angry with my mother most of the time. I couldn't tell her anything. Every time I did, she would tell me what she would have done or what I should do or what was going to happen. In any event, it wasn't what I would have chosen. The irony was that 99.9% of the time she was RIGHT. It would have turned out way better if I had done it her way. It was infuriating. Invariably that resulted in me storming out of the house to meet up with one of my girlfriends just so that I could rant and finish it up with, "I HATE MY MOTHER!" The beauty of it was that no explanation was required. Most teenage girls weren't overly happy with their mothers and I didn't have to say why I hated her. "I hate her because she's so smart and always right," would have sounded really lame. Besides, I wasn't mature enough to know that was why I hated her. It was just really tough being around someone who was so right all of the time. Who can measure up to that? It only made me feel more wrong, which I was. Ooooh. I hated her. Her and her constant rightness. I couldn't wait to go to college where I could be more right and less wrong.

By the time I moved back in with my mother in 1995, I wasn't a little girl anymore, and I didn't care so much about who was right and who was wrong. In fact, her rightness was comforting and reassuring, instead of strangling and demeaning. Instead of coming to her after I had already made the decision only to find out what the right thing would have been, I came to mom first to seek her opinion. I realized that I had an asset in Mom. Mom had 23+ years of living on me and the advantage of wisdom. I had never seen that in her as a child or a teenager. She was no longer the person who made me feel less than; she became my friend, as well as my mother, and was my cheering section and booster-upper.


I lived on my own for a long time before moving back in with mom. What I have discovered is that whether we are under the same roof or living in different states, she still gives the best advice of anyone I know.