Some Thoughts in Journal

Mom,

I have thought about our conversation- if it can be called that- from Tuesday. Here are some of my musings,
First, I think if you were confused or unsure about my preferences, requests or boundaries, there is always room for questions and clarity. I think I have always been clear that talking is better than not. Clarity is always better than confusion. And, I don’t want you to think that I want you to be confused about what I am requesting. I am requesting respect and open communication. I requested that you respect my person. I requested that you not contact me. This last request is to prevent more damage, because I am not being respected. I don’t think it’s unreasonable- but you are free to change my mind.
I think that I have spent a lot of time listening to you. I spent my entire life learning about you. You are the first person I ever knew. If I know anyone at all, I know who you are. And, if anyone is capable of knowing who you are, it is your children.
To put it bluntly, I know everything you have to say already. You haven’t said anything that is surprising or new. I don’t need to hear from you to know how you feel or what you’re thinking. This should be comfort; a relief. But, it is not a relief for you.
This level of intimacy is very threatening to you. You are saying that you’ve changed a lot over the years. Practically unrecognizable. But your stories are the same as they’ve always been.

I wanted to address your complaint that I wasn’t meeting your eyes or being friendly at Jamie’s party.
Perhaps I wasn’t. Maybe I reduced my effort to be friendly by 10%, or something like that. Perhaps I could have put more effort into chatting, into making sure that I looked at you when you were seeking me out, or offering to you some other  form of social comfort.
I can’t help but point out the obvious here;
You are complaining about my failure to make you feel good about our relationship.
You must understand, I didn’t make you feel bad. I don’t have that power. I cannot hurt you. You are the parent. You are my mother. It is the mother’s job to make her children feel safe, secure, happy, wanted, nourished, connected, and loved. Among other things. It’s the mother’s job to provide the emotional resources to her children so that they can be nurtured and feel secure in their own persons. A mother cannot get any of those things back from her children. Children are incapable of providing any of those things. And if a mother was to reverse this foundational-to-life relationship, then she is providing nothing while vampirically feeding off of her childrens’ neediness. A child is utterly helpless to resist this reverse- vampire relationship, if the mother so chooses to pursue it. It is a death sentence for a child to resist or even to fail to appease their parents.

I hear your argument. We’re both adults. We should both be acting like adults. My childhood was so long ago! And, there is nothing either of us can do about it now. (please do correct me if there is anything at all wrong with my characterization of your positions)Fundamentally, we can pretend that we aren’t mother-daughter and go our own ways, or acknowledge that the mother-daughter relationship is our foundation. Since it’s entirely impossible to ignore for me, I insist that we proceed with the latter option. (you are free to make your own choice)Since our adult relationship is shaped, defined by, and only possible because of our mother-daughter relationship, I think we have to address how this informs our current behavior.

I am tired. Very tired. Exhausted, really. I can’t appease you anymore.
I felt that you were very close to the heart of the matter when you said to me on Tuesday, “I wasn’t a mother.” I know. You weren’t. The real heart of the matter in my opinion, is that you still aren’t a mother. The evidence of this of course, is that you still complain that I don’t meet your needs for eye contact, friendliness, or that I’m deliberately trying to hurt you by simply not appeasing you.
Perhaps I am a hypocrite for pointing out that you haven’t been a mother when I in fact, have been acting like yours. I admit fault in that I was indeed manipulative when I tried to distance myself gradually. I wanted to see if I could ‘ease’ out of my bad habits. Although, in my defense, I did tell you exactly what I was doing and what my intentions were. I’m sorry that I disrespected you. I tried to manage your behavior. I tried to get you to do something. That was wrong of me.