Mom is the word
May 14, 2006 | 12:00am
I didn’t grow up wanting to be like my mom.
Actually, I swore to myself that when I grow up I won’t be anything like her. She was strict, fiery and wore magenta lipstick. Even as a child, I was terrified of her. Every move I made was calculated, fearing the Gucci belt whip that she always kept nearby to tap on my ass. Dad was the good cop and Mom was the bad cop. She had a different punishment for every crime possible. If I didn’t finish my food, I would have to eat double of that the following meal. If I watched TV for too long, she would unplug and store it somewhere far and dusty. It was only later on I realized my mother took on this role with much reluctance.
I hit puberty very late, like 16, making me question whether I was really a eunuch. Maybe I was really a boy with none of the equipment. So, you can imagine my awkwardness, which in so many ways still haunts me to this day. I never felt like the girls. I didn’t have many crushes then and just pretended to have them so I would fit in. I thought maybe I was a lesbian. But steaming clams didn’t quite appeal to me either. I decided at 15 that I was asexual, like a whiptail lizard.
Of course, since I’m basically a late bloomer, I’m now a crazy teenager in my 20s. However, back then I couldn’t tell my mother any of this. Part of me was scared she would punish me because I was a freak. It did somehow answer the question why my mother insisted that I wear the same clothes as my brother well into our pre-teen years. Maybe she secretly knew I was a eunuch, too. Of course, now I know it was for cuteness purposes and nothing else. For so many years, my mom was the enemy. I worked around her rules, trying to establish my own kind of democracy in her seemingly totalitarian household. I grinned at every unpunished rebellion, challenging myself to push the envelope further every time.
When your world is still that small, you can only see what’s missing. You fail to see the bigger and more important things and the purpose of why they are such. You just don’t question and ponder – you simply react. My teenage years were hardly fun for my mother and me. We hardly talked, and when we did, 50 percent of the things I said were lies. The awful part about this, I realize, is that while I lied, she believed me. My mother was a politician, and she already knew then it was a thankless task. However, being a parent was far more thankless. As a child and a teenager, we become too involved with our own dilemmas. We try to find our own place in the world the moment we start walking; parents, in my case my mom, always told me what to do. How far I could walk, how early I should be home, to how long my skirt should be. I believed that she did this so she could limit me into who I could really be if I made my own decisions. I had this theory that you have to make mistakes to learn. And her not allowing me to make mistakes made me feel like she was stunting me, robbing me of my full potential. She wanted to control me, I thought to myself ruefully.
I was quite steadfast in living a life without parameters. I became quite the nightmare, actually. Then one day, something brought my mother and me together. A little dog named Hercules. I brought him home and he was as tiny as my palm. My mom freaked out and called him a rat; my dad called him a racket. Then I was off to some other country to attend some boozy party as usual. The little dog was left in the house and fell ill. My mom, frustrated with my sterling parenting skills, nursed the dog. When I got back, they were inseparable. Then something quite impossible happened. I actually looked forward to waking up every morning. I would bring Hercules to her room, and we would spend hours playing with him; along the way, I started telling her what was happening to me – minus the lies. And she also confided things that startled me. She always seemed in control, but later on, I realized what made her perfect was her fragility. We became close, Hercules being the charm to our newfound friendship. When he died suddenly, we both felt a bottomless pit of sadness that we both only shared. It’s so silly to those who can’t understand the power a little furry friend can have in your life. However, for the first, my mother and I were on the same page and have been ever since. We lost Herky but we found each other.
Today, I don’t spend as much time with her but, whenever we do, we start talking; it’s like time stops. Before I know it, the sun has already set, I’ve missed my Pilates class, and not to mention a deadline for the paper. The blessing in all this is that my mother has become my friend. My best friend. Some are only so lucky to forge this kind of bond. I know some people who just leave the country or even marry prematurely to get away from their parents. Who knew a little dog would bring Pangaea back together? As for growing up not wanting be like her, there are still many things that my mother and I still don’t agree on. However, now that the world is bigger for me, I see her as this great woman, that no matter how much I tried, I would never be quite as magnificent as she is.
Actually, I swore to myself that when I grow up I won’t be anything like her. She was strict, fiery and wore magenta lipstick. Even as a child, I was terrified of her. Every move I made was calculated, fearing the Gucci belt whip that she always kept nearby to tap on my ass. Dad was the good cop and Mom was the bad cop. She had a different punishment for every crime possible. If I didn’t finish my food, I would have to eat double of that the following meal. If I watched TV for too long, she would unplug and store it somewhere far and dusty. It was only later on I realized my mother took on this role with much reluctance.
I hit puberty very late, like 16, making me question whether I was really a eunuch. Maybe I was really a boy with none of the equipment. So, you can imagine my awkwardness, which in so many ways still haunts me to this day. I never felt like the girls. I didn’t have many crushes then and just pretended to have them so I would fit in. I thought maybe I was a lesbian. But steaming clams didn’t quite appeal to me either. I decided at 15 that I was asexual, like a whiptail lizard.
Of course, since I’m basically a late bloomer, I’m now a crazy teenager in my 20s. However, back then I couldn’t tell my mother any of this. Part of me was scared she would punish me because I was a freak. It did somehow answer the question why my mother insisted that I wear the same clothes as my brother well into our pre-teen years. Maybe she secretly knew I was a eunuch, too. Of course, now I know it was for cuteness purposes and nothing else. For so many years, my mom was the enemy. I worked around her rules, trying to establish my own kind of democracy in her seemingly totalitarian household. I grinned at every unpunished rebellion, challenging myself to push the envelope further every time.
When your world is still that small, you can only see what’s missing. You fail to see the bigger and more important things and the purpose of why they are such. You just don’t question and ponder – you simply react. My teenage years were hardly fun for my mother and me. We hardly talked, and when we did, 50 percent of the things I said were lies. The awful part about this, I realize, is that while I lied, she believed me. My mother was a politician, and she already knew then it was a thankless task. However, being a parent was far more thankless. As a child and a teenager, we become too involved with our own dilemmas. We try to find our own place in the world the moment we start walking; parents, in my case my mom, always told me what to do. How far I could walk, how early I should be home, to how long my skirt should be. I believed that she did this so she could limit me into who I could really be if I made my own decisions. I had this theory that you have to make mistakes to learn. And her not allowing me to make mistakes made me feel like she was stunting me, robbing me of my full potential. She wanted to control me, I thought to myself ruefully.
I was quite steadfast in living a life without parameters. I became quite the nightmare, actually. Then one day, something brought my mother and me together. A little dog named Hercules. I brought him home and he was as tiny as my palm. My mom freaked out and called him a rat; my dad called him a racket. Then I was off to some other country to attend some boozy party as usual. The little dog was left in the house and fell ill. My mom, frustrated with my sterling parenting skills, nursed the dog. When I got back, they were inseparable. Then something quite impossible happened. I actually looked forward to waking up every morning. I would bring Hercules to her room, and we would spend hours playing with him; along the way, I started telling her what was happening to me – minus the lies. And she also confided things that startled me. She always seemed in control, but later on, I realized what made her perfect was her fragility. We became close, Hercules being the charm to our newfound friendship. When he died suddenly, we both felt a bottomless pit of sadness that we both only shared. It’s so silly to those who can’t understand the power a little furry friend can have in your life. However, for the first, my mother and I were on the same page and have been ever since. We lost Herky but we found each other.
Today, I don’t spend as much time with her but, whenever we do, we start talking; it’s like time stops. Before I know it, the sun has already set, I’ve missed my Pilates class, and not to mention a deadline for the paper. The blessing in all this is that my mother has become my friend. My best friend. Some are only so lucky to forge this kind of bond. I know some people who just leave the country or even marry prematurely to get away from their parents. Who knew a little dog would bring Pangaea back together? As for growing up not wanting be like her, there are still many things that my mother and I still don’t agree on. However, now that the world is bigger for me, I see her as this great woman, that no matter how much I tried, I would never be quite as magnificent as she is.
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