What do you do when you become the parent, and your parent becomes the child?
I feel sometimes that I'm so completely selfish, because all I want my mom to be is my mom. After the divorce, she continued on being that person for a long while... and then all of a sudden it's like she's 16 all over again. Partying, poor, drinking, dating... All I want is for her to go back to being my mom. My mom who makes chicken noodle soup from scratch when I'm sick. My mom who fixes zippers when they break. My mom who has dinner every Sunday for the kids and her hubby. My mom who redesigns the kitchen just so. My mom who can make everything okay when it isn't, and make all your worries melt away onto her shoulders.
I hate that now I am that person for her. I have to do the worrying, the calling to make sure she's okay, the taking care. It's not fair. I don't feel like a grown up yet. I'm not ready to be a care-giver... I'm still a care-taker. I don't even know who I am as a person, I'm not ready to help her find it too.
I'm selfish.
But I'm supposed to be! I'm the child.
I think she was happier then too though. The party only lasts so long. Then all your left with is a huge mess to clean up, and no one around to help.
Sometimes I feel like I need to be everybody's rock. The constant support system, the sounding board, the advice columnist, the counselor... and it used to be that my mom was mine. But now I'm hers too... So who do I get to talk to? Who is left to help me when it all becomes too much?
a) thank you for blogging more. as the tag suggests, it is indeed therapeutic and can greatly relieve stress. your worries become tangible in type, and are somehow validated by the fact they now occupy space.
ReplyDeleteb) one thing that has become abundantly clear to me recently is that we need to express ourselves. the internalization kills you slowly. it's a cancer. an easily avoidable cancer.
c) i am guilty of perpetuating the cancer. and i am sorry.
d) it's okay to be selfish. to a degree. and the degree is not immediately apparent some times. you'll get it sussed out. as will all people in their good time. we're all a bunch of fragile monkeys.
but there's beauty in our mistakes.