On Mothers And Control

The amazingly awesome Bestie called me today with a dilemma. The same one she had called her mother with earlier in the day. She's unhappy with some things in her life and she wanted some support, some comfort, from her mother...that's what they're there for, right? It's the one thing she didn't get...she never gets...from that source. That got me wondering: “What is a mother really?” In the Land of All Ducked Up she is a compassionate, loving woman who listens to you when you're hurting, tells you the truth (even when you don't want to hear it), and NEVER, NEVER makes you feel less than. Sound impossible? It's absolutely not. It's the woman that I call mom and the mom that I strive to be.

So what about Bestie? She got the standard answer, “Come home to me...I'll take care of you.” Sounds loving and compassionate, right? It's not. It's full of subtext, innuendo and maliciousness divine. What it really says is, “I told you so. Come back to our house so that I can show you how to fix your life since you don't know how to run it on your own.” You may think that I am over-reaching, but I've learned over the span of my 22 year friendship that no matter how benign her comment may seem to be, it's actually much more malignant. So what do you do about someone like that? Is there anything you can do? The quick answers: Nothing and no.

The long form to that is that at 34 I am just beginning to learn that we can do absolutely nothing about the people around us that make us feel insignificant. They will be who they are and I have not an ounce of control over them. Doesn't mean that I like it. Doesn't mean that I don't sometimes want to “scream into the wind” over it. It just means that I let them be who they are without letting it upset me. I'm not always good at it...I've had far too many years practice at being a control FREAK, but it's all about the progress. And even when I accept that her mom isn't the person that every child deserves in a mother, it doesn't mean that I say the right things to my beautiful, phenomenally gifted friend. I make mistakes, I'm human, but I'm more aware of those mistakes these days. And I'm out to change me into the woman I've always wanted to be...you know...the one that's a little less ducked up.