Just a Friend

I had a long and emotional phone call with my mother. We talk about once a week but we tend to stay on the surface - how our day has been, work, movies, etc. So it was draining. What it came down to was that she knows that my brother and I love her, we just don't like her very much. Honestly, she's a tough broad and yes, hard to like.

During late night replays of the conversation, I realized that it is because we know that she loves us - but doesn't like us very much. She's pretty negative about my brother - how he is being a jerk or not doing this right or not doing something he should be - so I can just imagine she's saying the same type of things to him about me. There's often disapproval in her voice when she talks to me and when conversations aren't about her, she begins to multi-task or just gets distracted in her own head. She doesn't listen very well.

With all that said, I also love her very much. She's taught me so many things: to never give up, how to make a guest feel welcome, to laugh, to laugh at *myself*, that you can handle anything life throws at you - one step at a time, to never take no for an answer when someone you care about is in need, to be engaged in your health care, to stop drinking caffeine, to get light in your house anyway you can, to get sunshine on your face whenever you can for at least 20 minutes a day, if you want to remember something - write it down, and to never play Scrabble with her because she will tromp your ass.

When she said that perhaps instead of being mother and daughter, we could just be friends, it was like a light went off in my head. I can deal with her much better if she is "just" my friend. There isn't as much past baggage. I don't have to try to please or placate her. And I can certainly open my mouth a lot more. Until this point, if I didn't agree with her, I'd just shut my mouth. With friends, I don't do that. I think I'm going to like this and it will help reduce my "existential angst."