There are many things to love about my family, but in this post, I am not going to talk about them. Every time I visit home for the holidays, it becomes increasingly apparent how my mother’s heavy hand, harsh criticism and neurotic tendencies have instilled in me a deep self-consciousness. Not the kind where I feel like I need to change what I look like or what I wear, but the idea of “not enough”…both a ‘we don’t have enough’ and ‘you are not enough’. I remember being asked to take on more classes while I was in college, or to take a second job, when I was already working a full time job. Somehow there must be enough working hours in the day to compromise any second of self-preservation.
Yet there was always a catch. While there were phone conversations coaxing me to take on more activities, every other conversation, in a disparaging tone, would be about whether I could handle the workload, the possibility of failure, whether I was behind my other classmates. I was always either not doing enough, or becoming crushed by the amount I took on. With my mother, there is no comfortable middle ground. For me, this translates into anger, resentment, and a consistent feeling of guilt. Small wonder that I didn’t turn out more fucked up.
Living away from home has allowed me to separate what I thought were her unrealistic expectations for me, from my mother’s self generated neurosis. She grew up very poor and lives forever with the idea of scarcity - that nothing will ever enough. It was how she was raised, and I do not blame her for her reaction. It’s as if any semblance of happiness is quickly eclipsed by cynicism, as a means of self preservation. While I can only offer my empathy, part of me wants to change her, to let her know that everything is ok, and can’t we all be happy now? It’s more than impossible to change the behavior that took a lifetime of conditioning. I know she isn’t truly happy, but I guess for some, happiness is truly a luxury.
