To begin at the beginning, as the king tells Alice at her trial, I was born. Actually, go back a bit — to Christmas of 1969. That’s when I began. Too much information, I know. But true.
Fast forward to the first anniversary of Woodstock. Both my mother and I experienced pain that day as I was born under a full moon — something that, if you put any stock in astrology, has hurt me from the get go. It would definitely explain some things: like my Dichotomous Woman title, aptly bestowed on me by a college friend.
I grew up in a small town, blessed and cursed to be the eldest child.
My first memory is of breaking the turn signal off in my father’s Volvo when I was very small. This would not be the first time I would hurt an automobile of his. It was Dichotomous Woman’s first strike.
It has been said that most of our personality is formed by the time we are 10. That theory intrigues and frightens me, because I don’t particularly remember my childhood as a happy one. Maybe that’s because my mother didn’t have her nervous breakdown until I was 7.
Being raised by a perfectionist has its advantages and disadvantages, and I’ve only recently begun exploring my mother as less than the perfect creature I always thought she was.
In fairness, my mother is pretty spectacular, which is part of the problem. She has shone brightly, and I have not been able to keep up with this image in my mind of who she was. It’s always hard to follow in the footsteps of the fantasies we create.
I could talk quite a bit about my childhood: about the first time I left home because my parents were sleeping and dammit if I didn’t want candy from the corner grocery store a 1/2 mile away. They awoke to find me missing and searched for quite some time before they found me. My mother said she was so panicked that she even looked in the mailbox, of all places. I was two-and-a-half at the time.
Early indicators of my independent streak.
I could tell you about my dad’s temper and pride and how it has hurt our relationship. I could tell you about my mother’s self-righteousness, enjoyment of the martyr role and her intense (and sometimes successful) attempts at religious indoctrination that have also separated us.
I could tell you about my own pride and judgment of them as closed-minded people, my don’t-cage-me-in mentality that they have trouble understanding and respecting, and my frustration at having to wait until I was 18 to move out and on with my life.
But what would I say?
It took years of weaving those wishes together and trying to make each other wear them to bring us where we are today. My silent demand that they accept me for who I am as different from who they are, and their silent and no-so-silent reciprocal demands.
I try not to let it bother me anymore. But it does. It bothers me the way it bothers all children who aren’t accepted and loved the way they wish they were.
Don’t get me wrong, my parents feel love for me. I don’t doubt for a second that they do. But the love they give is stingy and more about them than about me. Perhaps my love for them is the same.
I’ve tried to reconcile my relationships with my parents so that if one of us goes tomorrow that I will have peace. I believe that I’ll have peace especially if I’m the one to go. But I seem to long for peace more than most folks, so I add this wish to my list and try to keep doing my best.
At the end of the day, I grieve — as many people grieve — because our relationship could be so much better than it is.
I’ve tried to do some self-exploration and critical examination to see what it is on my end that should be changed. Relationships are always a two-way street. And I’ve made some adjustments.
But my greatest relief on this topic came when I asked my mother’s older sister, a very critical woman in her own right, what part I was playing in the less-than-close relationship.
“Angie,” she told me, “that one’s on your parents.”
I thanked her as a man dying of thirst thanks someone for a drink of water. It’s good to be loved.
