and we move on

today, I became an adult. despite my chronological age, I have simply never grown up. I have on occasion wondered why that should be, how can I look in the mirror and see the wrinkles and gray hairs and saggy chin and all the other things that indicate gravity exists, and still not have the mental and emotional maturity that would let me identify myself as a woman. Why the label "girl" is the only one to ever pass my lips even if I was thinking the other. I think I know what happened, and I think at last I know the why.

My parents are aged, but not old. They are timeless to me. And that's weird, because everything grows and changes and life effects change in all things. Well, they have some aches and pains and some troubles with vision, hearing, and orientation to time and place, but they are essentially unchanged from my childhood. Not just my perception either, checked with my brother to see if this is his experience with them as well, and yep. No change. No development. Nothing. All is as it has ever been.

The problem with this is that all is changed around them. I spent a month with them, running away from my own life, scared, traumatized, angry at what my family had become, hopeless, doubting myself-- I tried to be cooperative, I tried to fit in, I tried to be a member of the family. I actually sought to find out what they wanted me to do and then do it. Quiet. Non-argumentative. Totally not the careless rebel I had always been. But all for nothing, all for no avail, because I can not be judged on my current actions, but on the 52 years that have come before.

I can't please them. I don't know what they want. I ask, they tell me stuff, but somehow, either we are using different versions of English, or there is no way to actually communicate. I was anguished. I knew, just simply knew that I was wrong somehow. How can you not make your parents proud? How can you cause them so much pain, cost them so much money, embarrass them in front of their friends, what kind of piece of shit must you be to be so awful to these nice people? And they are nice, God knows they are nice. until you shut the door.

Went back today to collect the things I left behind when I fled, yet again, on the edge of my mother's tongue. suddenly I was in high school again, I was in college again, I was a young wife again, and nothing I did was right. Why can't you just behave, she asks. Why can't you just--- why can't I just what, Mom? what is it that I'm doing wrong this time? I won't cut my hair. I won't wear polyester pantsuits. I won't sit on my ass and eat fast food until I look like a whale like all my friends did. I don't raise my kids like you raised me, hitting and ridiculing, never explaining, never teaching the things I desperately needed to know. How do you choose a mate? What do you do when love fades? Who do you turn to when everything turns to worms? You, Mom? You, and hear you tell me that I'm sick, that I'm damaged, broken,--and now you have some proof that there may actually be something wrong, beat me up with it over and over. You will never amount to anything if you don't get fixed.

I picked up my boxes and put them in the truck. I closed the door to my old room in my mind. I said to my father, I'm moving out dad. I'm gonna get married and have some kids. he says, well, it's about time. It's about time you grew up.

I grew up today. I have finally, finally accepted that I don't know how to please my parents, I don't know how to make them proud of me. Their approval matters, but it is no longer the be-all and end-all of my life.
I drove to where my husband works, and I parked the truck. I went to the bookstore, then I came back and climbed up on the hood and sat there and read a book until he came out. Not ladylike, not the least bit. But it's my truck. And I'll sit on it if I want to. And I don't care what anybody thinks about that. or my hair. or my jeans. or my husband, for that matter.
I'm ready to take responsibility for myself. It's never too late.