parents.

so it's occurred to me that your relationship with your parents change as you grow older.

when you're 5 years old, your parents are the All. they're never wrong, they're never bad, they're never human. they're your gods. like the old cliche says, every child's word for god is 'mother'.

then you get older. around 13, 14, you start growing aware of yourself as a person. of the people around you. in school, you're learning more profound, critical ways of thinking. and suddenly you see reflected in your parents the faults that you've been taught to see elsewhere. they're not perfect; they're not infallible, and sometimes, they have a rotten-ass day and take it out on you.

thus begins the process of growing up. you start pulling away. at the same time you see all their faults, you remain somewhat blind to your own. you think you know better; with typical adolescent arrogance, you think you're smarter than anyone else.

i'm using 'you' here. i shouldn't. this is from personal experience. those pronouns should be i.

i thought i was smarter than anyone else. which isn't to say i walked around telling myself that - it's just that i had an implicit arrogance that, i suppose, has yet to entirely go away. but any which way, i was embarrassed by my parents. i thought they were impossibly old and dorky. i thought they couldn't understand me and the problems and the triumphs i faced. they did things that humiliated me at every turn; i couldn't stand to be around them. at the same time, i sneered at my friends who treated their parents like dirt, never realizing i was doing the same thing.

i think my parents musta been really puzzled then. i'm their firstborn, and when they were growing up, kids were more respectful toward their parents. especially my parents, one of whom lost her father as a teenager and thus carried a burden that precluded defiance; the other of whom was the eldest of four boys, son to busy parents that were, while not neglectful, certainly not around very much. my mother became her mother's support and my father became a father to his brothers. both of them were the eldest of their family, and both of them grew up fast, skipping past teenage angst. then along comes me: surly, disrespectful, slouching, shying away from them, scowling whenever they followed me around.

must've hurt them. they must've been confused and sad, feeling like they were losing me. and, ugh, if i could, i'd take it all back.

freshman year of college, i couldn't wait for my parents to leave. could. not. wait. of course when midterms came along and stress crashed down like an avalanche, i missed them - but even that was transient. went home for break, and it was the same old thing. i was embarrassed by them.

then somehow things changed. sometime between freshman year of college and senior year of college, my attitudes changed. i missed my parents. i grew to love my parents deeply, or maybe rediscovered that. when they came to visit, i wanted them to stay longer. i tried to make them comfortable, as though doing that might undone what i'd done for the past ten years. i showed them around, introduced them to my friends, didn't slouch, didn't scowl.

i don't know how that change came about, but it's still happening. with every passing year i'm getting to love my parents more and miss them more. it's true, you know - before you've left home permanently, and even after, you think you won't miss them. you think you'll be glad to be free. but the farther away you fly, the more you'll want to go back.

i'm having trouble articulating this. i feel so cliche when i say this. i feel like i'm doing a self-satisfied pat on the back. i had the words in my mind so clearly an hour ago. i think clearly when i walk at night, and when i stand in the shower. something about both acts clears my mind of extraneous thoughts. i think it's something about the darkness and repetition of one, the utter relaxation of the other. either way, i think better like that.

i keep telling myself i'll get a tape recorder, so i can record the thoughts i have in the shower and while i'm walking. but of course that's ridiculous, and i won't ever do it.

i'm kind of dissatisfied tonight. i don't know why. i think i'm just stressed, but the things that usually interest me don't. and i miss my parents a lot. that's dumb, i know - i'm 27 years old, and missing my parents.

but it happens. my mother always said it happens. she'd miss her mother, and i know my dad missed his parents too, though he'd never say it. i didn't really believe her when she told me that the older you get, the more you love your parents. i was a teenager then, and now i'm just looping all my thoughts into a circle.

ugh.

sometimes i wonder what i'd do different if i could do it all again. i mean, the party line that i give to that is 'nothing. i regret nothing.' but times like these, it's not true.

i regret a lot. i regret that it seemed to be in my nature to cut myself loose from my parents and, in doing so, cut them to the bone. i think i wrote once on this diary about how after teenage, it was different with my parents, and that's true. before, they're your god. after, they're your friend. you still love them - you love them more than ever - but it's different. you see their flaws. you see them as human. most times this is a good thing, but i have to admit, sometimes i wish i could go back to the unadulterated, total belief in my parents.

i know why people worship gods. people always need something pure and holy to look up to. i know why eden was blessed blissful ignorance, too. times like these, i really know.

mom.

I was heating a Marie Callender's TV dinner--country fried steak with mashed potatoes and gravy--and for some strange, inexplicable reason I suddenly remembered this little snatch of a moment from my childhood. I guess I was maybe thirteen, fourteen then, just starting to rebel against parental authority. Actually, by then I was just starting to really rebel. I'd been subtly rebelling for a while. But anyway, the point is for some reason my parents and I weren't getting along all the time anymore, especially my mother and I. We used to be really, really close...and we still are, I guess, but it's different now that I've grown up and the change came in my teenage years when I sort of pushed Mom away and tried to stand on my own.

The way I say it makes it sound justified and normal, but it's really not a time I'm proud of. Now that I think about it, it must've really hurt my mother. Impatience, surliness, snappishness, all that great teenager stuff...

I've drifted off the subject again.

My memory: thirteen, fourteen years old. Lotsa tension most the time. My mom's a pretty frugal person. Now my parents are pretty well-off, I'd have to admit, but they weren't always like that. When I was a toddler we lived in a two-bedroom apartment and worked our way up from there. I won't say how much my parents' house is worth now, but I will say I'm damn proud of my parents. My father's really a pretty brilliant guy, and incredibly hardworking, and my mother is the glue that holds the family together. They've come a long, long way in the space of twenty years.

And I've gotten off topic yet again.

Anyway, my mom's always been kind of frugal. If she wasn't, we wouldn't be where we are today. But along with that is this sorta curiosity to try new things. As a result, when she sees a big sale at the grocery store for something she isn't really sure of, she usually buys it and takes it home to test out hoping we'd like it.

Anyway, this memory comes from this time when my mother bought these instant mashed potatoes home. Actually, they weren't mashed potatoes. They were seasoned potato flakes, or something. I think my dad was on a business trip, and my sister was at a sleepover, so it was just me and my mom. We were making these potato flake things, mixing milk and laughing and talking.

I don't know why it suddenly came back to me, or why I'm even writing (so disjointedly) about it, but I think I should write it down because it's a very bittersweet experience. The memory itself is beautiful. My mom's one of those people who deserves more joy than she has. Not that she's depressed, or anything--just that if we're proportionate, then for all the good that she does, she should be repaid with more joy in her life than a human life can hold. But the memory was one of those times I like to think my mom was really happy. And that's why it's a beautiful memory.

It makes me so sad to think about this, but sorta in a good way. I can't even really explain why. It has something to do with the fact that she was trying to save money, but still hoping that her family wouldn't get the short end of the stick because of it, or something...and I really can't put it into words, the whys of it all. It just is.

I think I'm also sad because it reminds me of an earlier, better time. Early childhood. Best friends. Nowadays she's my mother, and I love her for that, but way in the beginning when I was little she was my mother, my best friend, and my hero. That's how it was like in this memory of mine. She was my mom, my best friend and my hero for a little while, but then the general timeframe of the memory was when I started pushing her away, and by the time I woke up and realized what I was doing I'd already distanced myself too much for her to be a best friend and a hero anymore.

Argh. I think I'm kind of rambling in circles. It's pretty irrational, how much I miss my mom right now. I almost wish we didn't have to grow up. Didn't have to go through the teenage years where we start exploring independence.

...

I'd like to call my mom right now and just say, "Hi, Mom. I love you." --and really mean it. I'd really like to do that.

But it's 3:30am. So I'll just write in here and go to sleep. When I read this tomorrow I'll probably wonder what was wrong with me tonight...heh.

Well, okay. Bedtime. Goodnight.