They F***k You Up... But By God You Help Them Sometimes

Please pardon the absence. Life lately has been a mess of family visits, catching up at work, and trying to get through the day without at least one nap. And frankly, after my last post (you remember, my declaration of hope for family relations?), I was embarrassed to have to chronicle the reality of my mother's trip to Ireland. It was a visit that raised within me questions I had asked before so many times, but been afraid to answer for fear of knowing the truth.

Do people have the capacity for real change? And if they do, can the people they are closest to ever recognise and accept that change?

I often pride myself on the changes I have made over the years. Once obsessed with traditional success at any cost, I have begun to recognise the value of non-material things in life and to seek those successes instead. Once the owner of a short fuse that could be ignited with little more than an awkward glance - I now work hard to maintain a cool and calm demeanor when dealing with difficult situations. There are many more, just as there were once so many things I hated about myself. Slowly, and deliberately (and frankly, not without help from some unlikely sources) I have begun to weed out those parts of me of which I had been ashamed - the ultimate goal of "better person-hood" looming there in front of me, my carrot on a stick.

Max, my husband, once made the argument that perhaps I had not changed anything other than the way I looked at myself - that maybe I wasn't so bad to begin with. I love him for the suggestion that I might have been less flawed than I had thought, but at the same time resented his failure to acknowledge my hard work. But with my family, it is a different story. I regularly accuse them (both verbally and otherwise) of not seeing me as I am now, of refusing to look past that emotionally unstable 16 year-old who hated herself and most others around her. They regularly accuse me of being ashamed of them and of where I came from. Is this the penalty for self-improvement? Am I actually ashamed of the people who produced the person I have tried to hard to change?

It is a mess of unanswerable questions, and sometimes I think I should get some real problems so I would have less time to think about such tosh. I mean, the fact that a leading psychologist wrote a book about parents entitled They Fuck You Up, inspired by a Larkin poem of the same subject is an indicator that I am not alone in my boo-hooing about the life I was given and the people who gave it to me. But here is where I implore you, just as I spent a week imploring my mother, to understand that is NOT what I am concerned with.

My life was my life, it has made me who I am. I am not a boring person, I am not a cruel person, I am not a stupid person, I am not a lonely or socially incapable person. I have a roof over my head, a life-partner I love, and a family on the way. What I need now is to somehow make this horrible cycle of fighting and resentment stop once and for all, to make my family see that I don't hate them and make my mother see that I don't carry around a big ball of angry because she screwed up occasionally when I was younger.

What I DO need her to acknowledge is that sometimes she screws up NOW. When I see her, I need her to see past all of the traits she hates about herself that she inadvertently handed on to me - and to instead see the things she managed to spare me in spite of suffering them herself for so many years. I need her to stop expecting me to hate her, to blame her and to fight against her regardless of what my actual responses might be. Why do we need to stay trapped in this cycle of who did what to who, or who hates who more? Why can't the decisions I have made be about me, and not be some rebellion against her?

When I saw my mother in the airport on that first day, the first thing I thought to myself was that she was more beautiful than I had remembered. I was watching her sitting there talking to my brother, oblivious to the approaching audience, and I thought "I can't believe I had forgotten how pretty she is." When I hugged her I smelled that familiar smell of cigarettes and original flavour chewing gum, and marveled for the millionth time at the softness of her hair and face in spite of years of dying her locks and refusing to invest in proper face cream. I reveled in her laugh, the way I often do, surprised that even now I could be startled by the loudness of her cackle juxtaposed with the tiny-ness of her voice. Standing in front her, nearly 28 years old and soon to be a mother myself, I was amazed by my own mother's youth - by her green corduroys and trendy brown Keds. It was so easy to forget in that moment that this 5'4" woman, with wrists and hands as small as a child's, had been through so much. Even harder to remember how much she had frightened me, and how large and overpowering she had seemed for so many years. But most of all I was surprised that after years of noticing only how many wrinkles she had gained, or her neglectful lack of make-up, or the fillings in her teeth, I could finally see how beautiful she was - and had always been.

This paragraph may seem oddly placed, but my perceptions of beauty have always been a tell-tale sign of my emotions. I have never been able to look at someone whose behaviour upset me and see them as beautiful. Likewise, many people in my life have grown more and more beautiful to me as we have grown closer. When I first met Max, I shrugged off his advances at first because I simply did not find him attractive. I find that almost impossible to believe now, nearly seven years later, as when I look at him I can't believe my luck that someone so handsome and kind wasn't snapped up before I came around. When I was a child I thought my mother was the most beautiful woman alive. My beliefs were not based on maternal adoration alone - no, my mother was a stunningly beautiful woman. My father, who can barely stand to be in the same room as my mother, would still say that my mother's beauty was unrivaled when they met. During the worst of my mother's temper, I would never have seen the tiny bird-like frame she actually possessed. She seemed larger than life, her teeth a bit sharper and her eyes a bit wilder. But after my mother left, I began to notice my mother's diminutive stature more and more. I did not as cute, as many of her male suitors did, but as meek and frail. While others insisted she had the face of a teenager, I thought she had too many wrinkles for her age. I thought her lips were too thin and that she looked almost pitiable when she walked into a room. I dreaded being told I looked like her, for I was far more proud of my tall frame and strong jawline which I had inherited from my father. I couldn't see her as beautiful, delicate or enviable, because I couldn't afford to see her that way. I needed her to be weak, or cruel, or pitiful, or unkind, or crazy - because then it would be OK for me to resent her the way I did.

So when I saw her in the airport and thought she was beautiful, I knew I had forgiven her. I knew I was ready to see her as a person, better still as a person who I would want to be around. I thought that maybe, just maybe, all those years of going to her and wishing that she would be the mother I needed and getting rebuffed were over. Now we could understand each other, respect each other, like each other.

But life is life, and not a feelgood summer flick.

We danced around each other for a while, me restraining my "tone" as much as possible, attempting to bite my tongue when she said something critical or interrupted what I was saying to point out the nearest floral display. If she were writing this I am sure she could tell you of many things she bit her tongue about, or many annoying habits which I possess that she had to ignore politely. But it wasn't long before the facade was broken, and frustrations became outbursts. I became convinced that she was trying to turn my brother against me, she became convinced that my husband hated her because I told him to. There were tears, mostly mine (as my mother rarely cries publicly), there was pleading for her to see my point of view. There were harsh words and condemnations of personality traits - blame allocated to each other for our failure to get along. There was even an implication or two that I would undoubtedly not be the best mother I could if I didn't change certain things about myself. We smoothed things over enough to get through the trip, but in spite of my several attempts at long and honest heart-to-hearts, no resolution was reached.

So at the end of her visit I was left feeling the way I often feel after seeing my mother. Drained. Sad. Relieved that she's gone. Guilty. Ungrateful. Emotionally unstable. Etc. It's not entirely her fault. It's not entirely my fault. It's not her mother's fault or her father's fault, or my father's fault or my father's mother's fault. We're just human, and I just don't know if either of us is ever going to be willing to change enough to be the person the other one needs us to be - or to accept each other for who we are.

Any pointers, sane people?