Support & Appreciation


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Monday, October 13, 2008

Speaking of love...

The mother-daughter bond


If you have it then you should thank God every single day for the blessing you probably don't even realize you've been given.

If you're like me, and you don't have it, then you thank God every day for giving you the strength to get through the void left from not feeling like you have what every girl should. A mom.

My mother and I have never been close. Ever. From the youngest age that I can remember I have just never felt that connection to her that most little girls feel for their mommies.

When I try to think back and pick out a particular thing that may have caused the initial disconnect, I can think of one, and it's not something I'm willing to discuss here, but that particular incident aside there are several things that I believe are responsible for the breach in our relationship, not only then but throughout the years.

I'm not going to say she was a terrible mother. She wasn't quite as bad as Mommie Dearest.

But she wasn't exactly June Cleaver either.


I think I mentioned in a previous post that my mom moved in with me recently. I was nervous about having her live with me. We don't see eye to eye on, well, a lot. I've lived on my own for a long time, and I like things a certain way and frankly I just wasn't sure we'd be able to live peacefully under the same roof.

I was partially right.

I suppose the initial conflict came from a misunderstanding of why I'd asked her to move in. My sister called me because she was worried about our mom. She asked if I would be willing to 'take her in' so to speak. I said yes. Mom some how got the idea that I asked her to move in with me because I and I quote 'wanted her to be a part of my life'.

I'm 32yrs old. I'm past the age of trying to make up for lost time, or get back something I never had as far as the mommy/daughter bond. I lived 50 minutes away from her before she moved in. Half the time I went to see my niece she wasn't around, or was there long enough to say hi and left to go do what ever. If she was really concerned with visiting with me I figure she'd have hung around when I was in town.

My mom is a talker. She likes to chat about anything and everything. I am not. I very much enjoy an intellectual conversation, but just random small talk is not my thing. I choose my words sparingly. I don't always need a reply, or an update, or just random chat about nothing in particular. I don't need to know what you ate, or that your stomach hurts, or what you watched on TV. If I want to know something I'll ask. If I don't ask it's usually a safe assumption that I don't care to know.

I know that sounds cold and impersonal, but it's just how I am. There are certain people that I connect with, that I care about in a particular way that causes me to desire knowing them in a way I've never felt about my mother. I'm sure a shrink would have a field day with me, and 2 or 3 already have, but for the most part they've all told me the same thing; I'm different. I have different views, different beliefs, different desires for my life, and my mother didn't reflect those things so I just never formed a connection to her.

Things have been a bit tense lately. She wants to talk, I don't. She wants to try and be mom/daughter. I just don't feel it. I try to be polite and honest, but it's just not in me to lie and pretend I feel something I don't. Even if it spares her feelings.

I'd like to think that one day we can get to where we can be friends. But for that to happen she'll have to come to terms with the fact that I'll never be like my sister when it comes to my relationship with her. I'll never feel the 'mommy' bond. That is something that is built at a very very young age, and it either is there or it isn't. And as much as I wish I could say differently - it simply isn't there with us.

I know there are things we need to talk about, but every time I try she gets defensive and angry. I've gotten past the anger so I can just talk about things civilly, and I think the fact that I don't get emotional just eggs her on even more. Then there's the issue of our vastly different recollection of how things were. Her memory of my childhood seems to vary quite a bit from mine.

I'm open minded enough to know that the way she relates the past may very well be how she remembers it, but what she doesn't understand is that just because my memories are different than hers it doesn't mean that hers are totally right, or that mine are totally wrong.

But having said all that, I do know that my relationship or lack there of with my mother is one of the things holding me back from where God wants me to go, so it's something that I've got to figure out how to work on.

I've been doing some reading online today about mother-daughter bonds and how some girls have them and some don't. One of the things most of the articles I've read keep bringing up is how daughters often have such a hard time talking to their mothers because the mother gets defensive and hears something totally different than what the daughter is saying. So they suggested writing a letter. I thought about doing that on here, but then I thought it might be best to keep some of the issues private. More for her than me. I've shared just about everything that can be shared on here lol, but this is me talking about my life. The letter will be more me talking about hers. So for privacy sake I've decided to write the letter the old fashioned way. Type it up and print it.

But I will keep you guys in the loop about how it works out. So wish me luck, wisdom with my words, a box of tissue and a shovel to start tearing down the wall of 'eh' that's kept me from the world in general for so many years.

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