Reconnecting

Recently I reconnected with my best friend from high school and all through my young adulthood, Cathy. As Cathy and I caught up on each other's lives during the past decade, I felt great talking with someone who knew me when, but a lot uncomfortable when she was asking questions about my relationship with my mom. It was when Cathy said "you're still having problems with your mom?" that I realized how long it has been since Mom and I have been totally sanguine with each other.

Like many teens, I had issues with figuring out where my childhood ended and my adulthood began. After my parents divorced and my mom went back to school I took over much of the household duties for my younger two sibs. This "playing house" gave me a really inflated sense of myself as an adult. I justified that if I was taking on adult responsibilities (like cooking dinner and helping my younger sibs with homework), then I should be allowed adult privileges (like not having a curfew or wearing whatever I wanted). With my dad temporarily out of the picture, I resented any parenting by my mom as interference. Unfortunately, as I was only 16, my maturity hadn't caught up with my ego and I was still naive enough to believe that my mom knew everything that was going on in my life (especially with boys and dating) and that her silence was acceptance. By the time I matured enough to realize that my mom had been oblivious to much of my teen-hood due to her preoccupation with her own personal life, I was married and had a child. Add to the mix that no one in either of our families ever thought Steve and my marriage would last (18 years and counting) and that my mom has very little relationship with my daughter (20% geography, 40% her, 40% me) and you have the perfect recipe for a mother and daughter that really don't know each other very well.

I'm not entirely sure how to go about reconciling this situation, especially with an 800 mile distance between us, but I know that it is time. I think I'll start the way I started when I reconciled my relationship with my dad: with a letter. I sent Dad a letter thanking him for all the things he did right in my childhood. I'm going to think about that letter and I'll blog it tomorrow.

I am grateful for reconnecting with Cathy. She has brought more dimension to my life because she is able to look at the 15 -year -old me she once knew and see what's changed and what hasn't.

I've certainly grown older, it seems to me like it's time to grow up.