Twenty-Five

In my mid-40's, am I too old to have mommy issues? I swear, mine has been driving me bonkers lately. I'm glad my parents are still alive and healthy and happily married, but I'm also glad they live about 600 miles away. Still, they have the phone and email at their disposal. My mom especially drives me insane. She is the queen of insulting, unsolicited advice, and most days I can hold the phone away from my ear while I watch TV and just let her say her piece. Other times she gets right under my skin and I feel a pinprick of pain, and I have to defend myself. Of course, whenever I say something she doesn't like, or doesn't agree with, she accuses me of being in a bad mood and how I obviously don't want to talk to her. You fucking think so?? Gee, what gave it away? But of course, she will call again, the next day, or maybe the next day. I have always hated talking on the phone, loathed it, even in high school when it was supposed to be the "norm" for teens to stay on the phone for hours. I hated it, and I can remember simply hanging up on people who would call and want to talk about BS for way too long. So, knowing this, I don't know why my mom calls me all the time, and expects that I want to chat with her on the phone, when I didn't even want to talk to my high school boyfriends or my best friend. Then she gets in a pissy mood when I don't sound overjoyed to hear from her. Truth be told, we have caller ID and when I see it is her, I usually don't answer the phone. But then sometimes she will call back again, and then when I don't answer it, the next day I have to give her an hourly report of my day as to why I wasn't "at home" when she called. My mom is not some decrepit old loon in a nursing home, calling me because she is lonely. My parents are fairly young (60's) and very active and have a beautiful home and lots of friends and travel a lot and have an extremely busy social calendar. Plus my sibling and her family all live in the same town with the folks. But, still, my parents always call me to say they are "worried" about me and just want to check in with me. Okay, I'm not ten and I'm not away at summer camp. I'm a grown woman with a wonderful husband who takes excellent care of me, we aren't in financial trouble, I'm not deathly ill, I don't have grandkids for them, and I really lead a very boring life and have nothing to say when they do call me. My parents have always treated me like I was a little kid, and one of these days I keep thinking it will stop, but it never does. My mom is the worst. When my dad calls me, he doesn't bug me too much, although he goes through the "I worry about you" crap, which I have no idea WHY he would say that or feel that way. They don't read this blog, so they don't know how unhappy I am- I put on my fake smiling, cheery face whenever I deal with anyone so they won't know. So, it sort of annoys me that my dad feels like he has to constantly check on me, when I feel like that is A's job to take care of me. My dad makes me feel like he doesn't trust A to do right by me, and that daddy has to step in, which is totally ridiculous, and completely out of line. But my mom, my god, she does nothing but criticize me about everything. She always has, and she probably doesn't realize it, and I'm too nice to say anything harsh to her. But she has always said things to chip away slowly at my self-esteem, says things that make me second guess myself, or make me feel like I've done something wrong when I haven't. For instance, I struggle with my weight, always have. If we go to visit my parents, my mom will actually fuss at me if I have a can of Coke, out loud, in front of others. I want to say, fuck you, I'm an adult I will have a god damn Coke if I want one, so shut up! But I just sit there and try to let it just roll off my back. I don't think she sees it as criticism, she will say she is "only trying to help", but I don't need that kind of help, I don't need my mommy to tell me, at 43, that I should be having water and not soda. God!!! I hate it, it makes me insane, it makes me see red, it gets my anger boiling faster than anything else on the planet. She feels like because she is my mother, she is allowed to comment on anything in my life. I like that I can have an open relationship with my parents, and tell them what's going on, but it's almost like that openness comes at a price because I'd better be prepared to get bombarded with negativity from my mother, or doubt from my father. I know back when I was in my 20's, and with X, maybe I needed them to lean on, to borrow money from, to help me out with advice or whatever. But that was 20 years ago, I am a different person, A is so totally opposite of X, and A puts me above all else in his life so he is going to take care of me. Surely my parents realize this by now. Yesterday I got a phone call from a company about 25 miles away, in another county, saying I had applied for a job there and would I come for an interview. I was confused, because I did send my application in at a few places here and there several months ago, but I didn't remember this place, this far away, this recent. I just shrugged and thought my memory was getting fuzzy lately. As I'm mentioning this to my dad on the phone, he told me that HE had sent my resume to an acquaintance over in that town, and they had probably sent it in for me. I'm like, what the fuck?? I don't really want a job right now, and I sure as hell do not want to commute 45 minutes one way to work. He didn't even ask me if this was okay, just took it upon himself to try and find me a job! I'm sure he did it out of love, but I mean, come on give me a fucking break already! This job would mean I would be gone from the house from 7am-6pm every day. No way, no way in hell do I want that. I always say, my parents kill me with their kindness, they smother me with love, and I can't tell them to back off, it would hurt their feelings. So instead, I'm the one who sucks it all up and tries to just deal with it. Yesterday, because I wasn't on my other blog all weekend long, both my parents called me in the middle of the afternoon to "check on me". I was like, are you kidding me???? I wasn't on my blog because I was out for the weekend having a nice time in the real world with A. But to them, they automatically think something must be "wrong". I wanted to shoot myself yesterday, in fact, I just told my mom I was busy with something and couldn't talk, I just couldn't take talking to her. Yes, I know I will miss them one day when they are gone, but good god they can't leave me alone for one minute it seems. My dad emails every day, sometimes several times, my mom calls almost every day, they say they just want to know I'm well and alive. I'm thinking, if I fucking die, surely A will call them and let them know! They want to come and visit next month, and I swear I don't know if I am in the mood for them right now or not. They always invite themselves, they always have, as though we are going to drop everything for them. They wanted to come a particular weekend this month, and I told them sorry, no, we already have plans with A's family out of state. They sounded pissy, said it was the only weekend that worked for them, I told them sorry we have plans. So now they've come up with another weekend next month. I was like, whatever, knowing they are going to come no matter what, I can't postpone it. And knowing them, they will want to be here for Christmas too. Maybe if I am not working by then, we can go to them, and come and go on our own terms, instead of hosting them at our house where we are stuck with them until they want to leave. I am just griping today, they have just been annoying the hell out of me lately, calling, emailing, constantly asking me if everything is okay just because I don't email them back every five minutes. Just because I'm sitting at home all day long, does not mean I have nothing to do with my time! So, I will just continue to not answer the phone when they call, then make up some excuse as to where I was when they called- like it's any of their god damn business!

Five

I had the perfect childhood. We were middle class, and later on upper middle class. My father was a very important person in town, in politics. Everyone knew him, and he knew everyone important. He'd lived there since he was a teenager, and many of the people he went to school with and was friends with back then, also rose in local politics. Even now, when I go home to visit, we can't go ANYWHERE without someone coming up to my dad to shake his hand and say hi, or stop my mom in the store to say nice to see you. My dad was and still is very influential, and is still in politics there. So I grew up with everyone knowing who I was. I also grew up with very involved parents. It didn't matter what we kids were doing at the time, my parents were in the PTA, or coaching our teams, they chaperoned on field trips, volunteered in the school office, even ran the sports boosters' club. As a teen, it was annoying, because I never got away from them. I can remember in high school, trying to make out with a boy in the back of a school bus on a class trip, and having my mom catch me. They knew every move I made, even if it was at school itself and they weren't there, somehow everything I did always got back to them, whether it was good or bad. My parents were and still are overprotective, and I even complain that my mom treats me like I'm still five, and my dad treats me like a fragile princess. I think my first husband took after my mom, but the second time around I got it right and married a man just like daddy, who puts me up on a pedestal and bends over backwards for me. I could not have asked for more loving, sacrificing, caring, respectful parents. They raised us well, to say yes ma'am and thank you, to reach for the stars, to always do the right thing, to never give up and never give in, to be happy and healthy and balanced. Lately I feel like a fraud, because inside I am none of those things, and I'm not sure I ever was 100%. Although I am in my mid-40's, my parents are still overcome with worry with my health or finances or day to day well-being. I love them for it, and I appreciate my upbringing, I appreciate the fact that my dad would work two, sometimes three jobs so my mom could stay home with us, to make our breakfasts every morning and then be there when we got home from school. We celebrated all the holidays, had big birthday bashes, decorated the house for everything including Easter and Halloween and even Valentine's Day. Mom would stay up until midnight typing our term papers so we could get plenty of sleep. They bought us our first cars, they sent us to college, they gave us wonderful weddings, they gave each of us $20,000 as downpayments for our first homes. My mom gave up a lot so that we children could have everything when we were teens. She would buy cheap K-Mart shoes so we could wear Nike and Reebok, she would wear old ragged pants so we could have Sassoon and Gloria V jeans, she used a fanny pack so we could carry Liz Claiborne purses. My mom is still like that today. She grew up extremely, desperately poor and even though she and my father have well over a million bucks sitting in the bank, she still buys and wears the cheapest clothes she can find. It seems like my sibling and I are always giving her clothes for her birthday, or Mother's Day, because we know she won't buy it for herself. My dad is the opposite, he grew up very middle class, very comfortably, and he likes to spend money on the two of them- vacations, new cars, new boats. My mom is very humble, and so is my father but he worked very hard all of his life for that money, and he is not afraid to spend a little on them here and there. My mother refuses to allow him to buy things like flowers or jewelry for her, she's actually made him return diamonds to the store because she won't take something like that for herself. I know my parents are the reason I am the person I am today, besides all the depressing bullshit. I've never been arrested, I've never done drugs, I've never had alcohol, I've never allowed a man to abuse me physically, I graduated from college, I've walked the straight and narrow my whole life. I know they are proud of me, they adore my current husband (hated the first one), they feel secure about my future, and they still want what's best for me in every aspect of my life. To this day, they still encourage me, they still support me, they still accept me, they still love me. For that, I am truly grateful. On some days, they might annoy me, because my mom is a little nosey on the phone, but I know it is always out of concern. If anyone could ever be loved too much, it is probably me. Between my outstanding parents and my indulging husband, I am indeed a lucky lady.