Hurt

Sometimes I wish my mom and I had a better relationship. In many ways our relationship, I imagine, is what many other daughters would wish for because we always make each other laugh and generally joke about the same things.

Lately, though, I have realized that we don’t really have any kind of relationship at all. Making each other laugh is hardly a special connection. Teachers make me laugh, my grandma makes me laugh, Jon Stewart makes me laugh. Humor is a great thing, incredibly important to me and the key to happiness in life but I have come to understand that it can’t be the basis of a mother-daughter relationship.

This past couple of weeks I have been hanging around the house, happy to be done with finals, in a transitional phase between high school and getting ready for univesity. I literally haven’t left the house and haven’t talk to friends. Instead I watched Gilmore Girls over and over again with my brother.

This, my zooming weight gain, and the fact that I lied to my mom about going to the doctor about a week ago have made things a little weird between us.

I can’t say that I ever felt that unconditional love from my parents as I imagine parents would feel for their kids and as I believe I’d feel about my kids. Maybe they’re just not that good at expressing it but maybe they just don’t feel it. And with everything going on these past weeks and months I think that maybe I can’t even blame them, maybe I have disappointed them with my below average GPA, my imperfect looks, my sloppy attitude, my love for books and movies and rain.

It does surprise me, however, that they show so openly that they don’t like the things I do, the way I look and how I live my life. Tonight my mom asked me to sit with her and she started talking about my weight issue, at first extremely vaguely - by the end she mentioned getting help from outside which translates directly into fat camp.

Now, I know that my weight is an issue. To me, however, it is not a problem. Of course it can be irritating to find a prom dress in the right size and look good in it when you’re a little overweight. I do sometimes look into the mirror and hate what I see. Usually, it doesn’t bother me, though, and I also just don’t want to go through what would be necessary in order to loose all the weight. I don’t think the effort would match the final outcome.

I know that I need to do something, take tiny steps here and there, whenever I feel like it and the timing seems right. I’ve known this for a long time and I have taken tiny steps since then. Steps, that my mom doesn’t seem to notice.

Which is why it hurts that she talks to me the way she did tonight. As if I didn’t have a clue that carrying extra weight around is unhealthy. As if I didn’t care about anything at all.

But what hurt the most is that she said that she would make herself clearer and directly tell me that she wants to see me do something about it right now because she doesn’t like the way I look and, often as a result, act. But, she said, she couldn’t because, obviously, she couldn’t talk to me the way she could talk to a friend. That hurt. And I’m not sure why it hurt so bad because I don’t want her to be my best friend. Basically, what she said is, that she thinks I’m too fat and if I’d only loose weight I’d look prettier and have more fun in the world and be happier - but she couldn’t because she’s obliged to be nice to me because she’s my mother.

That, of course, opened a whole new chapter - at least I thought so. Happiness, to me, has nothing to do with my weight. As soon as I got to Kentucky my life was more fun, more active, full of love and joy and, effectively, I lost weight. I was happier then, sure, but I didn’t force myself through a weight loss plan and then, one day, I was happy because I had reached the magical goal of twenty pounds. It doesn’t work that way.

Of course, I didn’t want to tell my mom that I’m not happy with my life here. Or that I lost all that weight in Kentucky because my host parents there did show me that unconditional love from day one which made my happy and stronger. I can’t yell at her and say that if she thought I had a problem, maybe she should take care of hers first - after all I’m not the smoker in the family. I didn’t say that her problem was just as bad, or actually much worse than mine or that my dad is very obviously addicted to his nightly bottle of red wine, and shouldn’t that be discussed also?

Because this was about me and the fact that I didn’t turn out the way she evidently wants me to be: skinny, bubbly, athletic, talkative, uber-intelligent.

This bothers me. It makes me so angry that I felt great those last couple of weeks because I was doing what I love doing, because I am successfully graduating this June, because I am fully admissable to the university of my choice and ready to get started, because I have a small bunch of amazing, loyal friends, because I have a whole second life in Kentucky which is something she would never have been able to jump into, because I know who I am and what I want.

But then, a call from my friend N today who rambled on about all the alcohol she’s been drinking since we’re out of school and how she has yet to find the perfect shoes for her stunning prom dress as well as this extremely insensible attack by my mother, have thrown me off track again.

What if it is not okay to be myself, after all? What if reading books and traveling the world and actually wanting to learn at university is still uncool, after all? What if, what people really mean to say is, SURE YOU CAN BE YOURSELF IF ONLY YOU MATCH OUR AGENDA.

I hate this - so - much. It is obvious that my self-esteem is rather low… and I probably do want to do something about my weight in the near future. But I can’t believe that my mom actually sits down and tells me to my face that it’d be wise to loose as much weight as possible before university because with these looks I sure as hell won’t make any new friends.

Is that what mothers are supposed to do? I wonder if she ever thought about the fact that I fell into circles of depressions after Kentucky. Coming back here has been hell and it’s not like she (or my dad) had been there to catch me from falling. It’s not like I wanted them to because our relationship has always sucked - especially compared to the relationship between my host parents and me. But still. Shouldn’t she try to at least pretend that she loves me no matter what? Shouldn’t she say, good job on graduating from high school? Shouldn’t she say, I’d love to, when I ask her to watch some TV with my in my room and go over a project I helped her with for her work instead of sighing and telling me she’d rather watch Who wants to be a millionaire? downstairs?

Shouldn’t she say, your hair looks beautiful today, instead of, consider fat camp? Shouldn’t she tell me, at least once in a blue moon, that she’s proud of me instead of frowning over the fact that I’m reading Jane Eyre and not some crappy Janet Evanovich novel? Shouldn’t she be truly honest instead of telling me that she’ll say it in a roundabout way since I’m not her friend? Shouldn’t she say, I love you, instead of, I hope you’ll think about it? Isn’t that what mothers do?

I am hurt. And she doesn’t even notice.